Fate Unbound
by Ollen70
Summary: What would have happened if Hitomi had made a very different decision at the end of the series, involving her own abilities and the gravity of fate? Would she be ready to deal with the possible consequences? A little darker than I'd intended.
1. Fate unbound

  
Ollen70: When I said I was gonna do a Dornkirk story, this was not at all what I had in mind. I have no clue where this came from, except that I've been stressed lately and stress does frightening things to me. I think part of it might be because I've never heard of another story with this premise and thought it might be fun to try something different (and believe me when I say that this definitely qualifies as different.') Oh well.   
  
This turned out to be what should probably be classified as a Dark Hitomi' story. As such, there's bound to be quite a few out-of-character moments, but I did the best I could to try to blend it together and not traumatize anyone. Just please don't hate me forever, okay?   
  
*Dives behind computer as objects come flying at him*   
  
I really did have good intentions when I started. The next story will be more normal, I promise.  
  
  
  
Disclaimer: The premise of The Vision of Escaflowne does not belong to me. No money is being made from this story.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Fate unbound  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
There are some actions that hold consequences above our ability to perceive them. There are some discoveries, even in the ever-golden name of science, that could, in time, lead to more strife and heartache than we could ever even begin to imagine. There are so many obstacles, treacheries, and pitfalls on the way to our sophistication that it is a marvel to me that we still pursue that path at all. I wonder if we might regret it someday.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
  
Action and consequence are at their absolute strongest here... stronger than I could have imagined. Folken gasped out the words, dropping to his knees on the dias high above her. The power of the altercation of fate... Is this the end...?   
  
She cried out when he fell, his blood spilling down his body to mix with the black feathers of his one-regal wings. Hitomi clapped her hands to her eyes as she cried, not willing to grasp what this meant. Folken, who had lost and then gained back Van's admiration, was now lying dead in his own blood, and there was nothing she could have done.   
  
The great gears of the machine above her were turning under an odd, green sky, and the war was only growing hotter. All of her worst fears were slowly coming true, and it was only a matter of time before Van's blood covered the ground as well.   
  
I don't want to see any more. She wept quietly, aware that there was no longer anyone left alive in this place to hear her. That didn't really matter. She could feel Van's pain and it absolutely overwhelmed her. There had to be a way for her to help him - to take away that pain, or to change fate, for once, for the better. She was only barely aware of the gears that were by now spinning so quickly that her eye couldn't follow them.  
  
It has begun.   
  
The voice startled her from her reverie, though the sight of what stood beside her was far more unnerving. Dornkirk, dressed in regal robes and holding a cane, glanced up at the frantic machine. The zone of absolute fortune is born.  
  
What... What do you mean? She asked, drawing away from him. The old emperor was dead. Folken's sword had killed him right before her eyes. She didn't understand how he could have returned, but that wasn't even the most pressing of her problems. She could guess easily enough what the zone of absolute fortune was supposed to be.  
  
The wishes of all those who suffer will finally come true. I've built for these people a world without pain or loss - a world where fear can become an illusion and joy a cornerstone. I have done for Gaea what I had always hoped to do for our own Earth. He stepped closer to her, his smile kind.  
  
It won't last. This is the power that destroyed Atlantis. She almost felt sorry for him, if all he'd ever wanted was to do what she herself wanted now for Van. He was just an old man in her eyes now, not a cruel emperor or a madman. Tired and careworn, he looked content now that he had accomplished his goals.  
  
But it wasn't happening. Closing her eyes, Hitomi could feel the fighting that still raged on. Dornkirk looked on at his old destiny device, apparently as shocked as she was.   
  
she appealed to him, what's going on? Why are the allies fighting? Shouldn't the war be over?  
  
For a long moment, Dornkirk didn't answer. He looked at her for a long moment, fingering his long beard thoughtfully.  
  
It appears that human emotions make it so.  
  
You've got to stop that machine! Please! There has to be some way to end all this! Don't you see that you're causing pain instead of ending it?  
  
was his cool reply. Once set into motion, these things can't be stopped. We are but spectators, forced to watch the affairs of the people until the end. If it is destruction the people wish for, we shall not deny them that. We must simply accept this fate.  
  
It was then that it dawned on Hitomi was the old man was hiding in those words. He wasn't being entirely honest - no matter what he told her, the fear in his eyes spoke more loudly.  
  
War exists out there because it exists here. She said simply, letting the   
words form slowly as the realization became more and more clear.  
  
  
  
Folken wished for your death and it was granted. Now that you don't live any longer, it isn't your place to try to determine fate. Hitomi spoke with more confidence now. Not everyone's wishes can come true, because we all want different things. All that can come from this is chaos and more death, and I won't let that happen any longer. Your time is over.  
  
  
  
Dornkirk stared for a long time at this girl before him. In her, there was a power that he could not deny any more than he could understand it. Who she came from, how she was brought to Gaea and why she should posses her power over fate were all unknown. Before, all that had mattered to him was drawing her away from the dragon and then using her as a catalyst for his own purposes. It never even occurred to him that she might have the strength to fight back.  
  
You are dead, old man. You don't belong here and I won't let you stay. You proved yourself unworthy of this power when you allowed yourself to be killed, but someone must hold it. Someone has to save Gaea.  
  
You're going to take the power of Atlantis? He asked, stunned by what he was hearing.  
  
  
  
What of your love? What of the dragon and its fate? Are you willing to betray them merely for the sake of power? He frowned at her deeply, willing her to recant this foolish decision. Deep down, he was terrified. He had never meant his power to be wielded by one person alone. Everyone deserved to have wishes granted - there was no one person who should be granted that terrible power, to decide the fate of the world alone.  
  
Those things are important to me, but this is bigger. I'm doing it for him. Van will understand, and if he doesn't, I'll make him.  
  
What were you, dear child, and what have you become? He asked with poorly masked horror. Destiny is not a tool.  
  
You would have used it that way. If you didn't mean for it to be a tool, why did you rebuild the Atlantis machine in the first place? I didn't start this, after all. It was you who let the power slip through your fingers.  
  
You're mad. This wasn't meant for you. Dornkirk spoke it loudly, wincing at the reverberations of his own voice in the chamber. Hitomi didn't look at him, her eyes half-closed in the cold light around her.   
  
This was your war, emperor, and it has to stop now. You started all of the death and destruction and refuse to stop it. I'm doing what I have to.  
  
  
In the end, this was her only choice. Maybe the manipulation of destiny wasn't something to fear. Rather, it was something to embrace. She wasn't sure if she was making the right decision even now, but it didn't really matter. Something had to be done, or Van would die. Their destinies were growing apart - she could feel it happening - and if she did nothing, the warfare of Gaea would kill him.   
  
It would have been better if none of this had ever happened, she thought. It was an easy, foolish thought at that. Things weren't supposed to end this way, but she couldn't deny that part of her secretly wanted this.   
  
Your time is over.  
  
And yours is beginning? Dornkirk scowled at her contemptuously. Do you believe that you can command or even begin to comprehend the magnitude of the power you reach for? To your dismay, you will learn that you cannot. Your time will not come.  
  
She watched the destiny machine for a moment, focusing only on it and the deep, sympathetic throbbing from within her pendant.   
  
You might be right... I don't know for sure either way, but one fact can't be ignored.  
  
And what might that be?  
  
You don't belong here anymore. Raising one hand, she felt it tingle and go numb after the ghostly outline of the emperor flared brilliantly. When the light cleared, he was gone.   
  
Hitomi looked back up at the machine, surprised when she realized that she wasn't afraid. She spread out her arms, thinking only of Van for a moment before she let his memory go.   
  
You were wrong about more than you knew, she told the emperor's empty chamber. Fate isn't always flexible. Sometimes we really have no choice.  
  
  
  
Ollen70: And that, as they say, is that. Please don't hurt me.


	2. What once was

  
  
Ollen70: You know, I wanted this to be a one-shot. I really, truly did. After The Parts that Break the Whole (which was also supposed to be a one-shot,) I only wanted to do a very brief story that I could hammer out in a few hours and be done with. Looks like that's not gonna happen.  
  
I have no idea on what the direction or plot for this might be, (like that's ever stopped me before,) so I guess we're all in this together. Please let me know if you have any suggestions on what should happen, and I'd like to say thanks' to SabineballZ, Macky, Feathers of snow, Wink57CS, and last but not least, the ever-stupendous Rai Dorian, for their reviews. You guys really made my day.   
  
  
  
  
Chapter Two - - What once was  
  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Life is too strong for you - It takes life to love life. Edgar Lee Masters_  
  
_* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
  
What was this place, and how had it come to be? Part of him was afraid to know the answer to that question, but that didn't keep his mind from asking it time and again. There was certainly something very wrong with this place, something so terribly wrong that no one could deny it, even though many of the people around him had become very good at doing that over the last few days.  
  
The field was barren, deep with snows that drifted from the occluded sky above, apparently unaware that the time for snow was not for another two months, at least. Aside from that, this field and the valley beyond it held nothing more spectacular than the brindled, ice-wrapped trunks of birches. The problem didn't lie in what was here. What worried him, as he looked out over the frigid perfection of the landscape, was that the great capital of Zaibach was *not* here.  
  
Trudging through the trees and across the standing ice, he stopped before the gray hulk of the Escaflowne and climbed aboard, pulling his heavy, brocaded jacket and scarf close around him as he did. He wouldn't have imagined that it could be so bitterly cold here, and was glad that he'd taken Millerna's suggestion and worn heavy clothing.  
  
With loud, metallic crunches, the guymelef strode unopposed through the valley. It was not hindered by the patches of briars or scrubby underbrush that protruded from the snow like barbed wires now that their foliage was gone. He headed on absentmindedly, his thoughts more on this very unsettling discovery and the events of the past few weeks than the oppressive and yet beautiful whiteness around him.  
  
The alliance nations were mostly restored since the close of the war, the Chesario and the Baslam kingdoms being the most badly damaged by what took place - Van himself had brought about the destruction of several Baslam vessels after they'd turned on the rest of the alliance. Through the overall chaos of that day, no one had come up with a very valid theory for why Baslam had turned in the first place. Some believed it to be because of a secondary pact with Zaibach or perhaps some other equally distant conspiracy theory, but no one could say for certain now that many of the Baslam leaders were dead after the battle and the few remaining had given only apologies without any kind of answers.  
  
After the sun set over the field of battle, not one Zaibach soldier, citizen, or Guymelef was ever found. It was almost as if they'd been erased from the memory of Gaea entirely. King Dryden, dispatching as much of his own work force as he could after Asturia was once again repaired to assist with Fanelia's reconstruction, had begged him to look into the matter. Van was very reluctant at first, anxious to search for Hitomi even though there was no sign of her and no lead from anyone as to where she might have gone.   
  
Folken too had vanished from Palas, but Van, with a certain sense of foreboding, doubted if he would see his brother again. Something about the way they'd parted before the final battle told him that Folken had resolved whatever conflicts he'd left unfinished, and there was a certain degree of peace in the younger boy's mind as he thought of his brother now.  
  
The two disappearances might have been somehow connected, but there was no way to prove that. Indeed, there were a great deal of contradictions floating in the air, situations that should not have been resolved as easily as they were . King Dryden was an excellent example of this. Van had thought, from speaking briefly with Eries, that he'd planned to step down from the throne of Asturia and that he'd returned his wedding band to the blond princess. However, no more than a week later, they appeared together in the throne room of their palace and all rumors about their impending separation ceased altogether.   
  
Trudging forward, Van stopped again to gaze at the sky. This place felt innocent, and that was enough to convince him that the very face of the world must have been altered drastically. If Zaibach had ever existed here, there would have been no innocence. There was nothing more for him to discover here, and part of him was ready to return home. Fanelia had been left in the hands of Merle, and Millerna had ventured there as well as a personal favor to him for taking on the mission at all. He wasn't sure why Millerna's arrival in his kingdom made him feel more at ease, but it did. Something told him that, in some small way, she understood what Hitomi meant to him.  
  
That alone, of course, wasn't enough. He'd protested violently when he'd been asked to search for what might remain of Zaibach, and that was mainly because he was afraid what he might find there. Hitomi might have died, and as much as he wanted to know what had become of her, that thought was enough to prompt him to drag his feet. If he found her, alone and dead in some dark, lonely place, he wasn't sure what he'd do. Never knowing what had become of her would be better than that. At least he'd have some reason for hope. Without her, he didn't know what he could be.  
  
Pulling the levers nearest to his hands, he felt the Escaflowne transform and found himself on it's back, pulling the jacket and scarf more closely around him against the force of the wind. There were no answers here, but he wasn't done looking. He wouldn't go back to Fanelia just yet. Had their roles been reversed, she wouldn't have given up on him so easily; he would discover her fate, no matter how unpleasant it might prove to be.  
  
* * *  
  
Far away in the dark confines of her chamber, she looked intently into the screen before her. He didn't understand yet. He hadn't let go, as she'd hoped he would even though she knew better. At any rate, it mattered very little one way or the other. He would come, he would learn of her, and then everything would change.  
  
  
  
Ollen70: I have no idea how long it'll be before I get the next chapter up, but I hope it'll be soon. Thanks for reading.


	3. Under the weight of your life

Ollen70: I've never gotten this many reviews so soon, so it's been a great motivation for me to keep going. Don't get me wrong, I'm very loyal to my stories and plan on finishing them no matter how often they get reviewed, but it certainly adds to the inspiration when you hear that people like what you're writing.  
  
This has to have been the weirdest day ever. It snowed today, which probably doesn't seem all that spectacular to many of you, but it never snows this early in the year in my part of Oregon, so it threw everybody off. I'm stuck inside today, since they actually called off college classes because the roads were so bad, but I'm not complaining. At least I can get a little more writing done. =)  
  
Disclaimer: The characters represented here don't belong to me. I mean no disrespect to their creator by writing this.   
  
  
  
  
Chapter Three - - Under the weight of your life   
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
And I shall have some peace there,  
For peace comes dropping slow. William Butler Yeats  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
  
It was dark, so very dark that, in time, the light of the stars seemed invasive when the clouds broke away to briefly reveal them. The mystic moon never shone, given that the Asgard continent was so far away in the most remote, hidden part of the world.   
  
Looking upward, Hitomi allowed herself a small parody of a smile, wondering exactly when it was she'd started thinking of it as the mystic moon rather than the earth. Very few things were the way they had been in the past, and there were even fewer that she bothered to deny any longer. She'd never expected to end up in this position, but it was rare for life to lead in a totally predictable direction.   
  
Outside, even with very little light to confirm it, Hitomi knew it was snowing. She drew away from the thick panes of her window and closed the white brocade curtains. Her chamber, mostly metallic, held a lingering coldness despite the fact that it was truly quite comfortable within. Cold didn't really bother her anymore. It was one of the few constants in this barren place, secluded so far away from the rest of civilization.   
  
After claiming the power of Zaibach, she had no choice. There was no way she could remain among the masses while the power of wishes was fresh in her - there was so much she had to test first, so much she wanted to do, but wasn't quite sure of.  
  
This fortress, built into the ice and snow of the forgotten continent, was a safe refuge against the things she used to know. Not just Zaibach's wars or the places in Gaea, either. Here, she was safe even from the light of the mystic moon and the old responsibilities she'd left behind when she'd assumed what might have been Dornkirk's role, had he lived long enough or understood enough about fate to claim it.   
  
* * *  
  
Fanelia didn't tend to get as much snow as the higher lands like Chesario. Though it was often cold enough in the winter, the snow was usually only enough to keep the ground white and clean through the months, never deep enough to pose any sort of an impediment. It lay in a shallow layer, hiding any imperfections in the ground and adding character to the trees in the hills.  
  
Merle stood on the walls, eyes on the darkened sky and the icy blanket below her. For the first time in weeks, she was at an absolute loss. With Lord Van gone, she felt absolutely, undescribably alone, lost amid this new sea of almost-familiarity. During the reconstruction, there were always things to occupy her time, especially that she was now a sort of head advisor to the king. Ruling a kingdom wasn't exactly something she had experience in, but Van needed support in more ways than one.  
  
Ever since the fall of Zaibach, he'd been so different that it was hard for her to be near him. The old boyishness was totally hidden behind a hard, frigid wall of... something. Van spoke only rarely, even when Hitomi had been around and things had been marginally more normal, but his silence was so structured and almost what she wanted to call disciplined' for lack of anything other word. Like he'd been distancing himself from everything intentionally.   
  
Millerna had spoken with her about it the day Van left for the old Zaibach territories, expressing many of the same concerns. Merle felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising slightly, remembering that appraising look the princess had given her, as if there was some reason for them to deeply pity Van.   
  
He'll get over it in time. She'd said grandly, and Merle had been forced to grit her teeth to keep from punching the woman. He wasn't sick or weak, and he certainly didn't need anybody's pity. It's just one of those situations. He's going to have to figure it out for himself, and there isn't anything we can do.  
  
Merle knew that Millerna only wanted to be useful - that's why she came to stay in Fanelia in the first place, following Van's departure - but that didn't mean Merle had to like her for it. No one had asked her to come, after all.  
  
Letting her eyes rove over the hills without really taking in much of anything. Van would find what he was looking for, if they gave him enough time to search. For her, that was the hardest part. She missed him, missed what they had before the wars, missed everything about the old Fanelia and hated all the things about the new Fanelia didn't fit. She'd never, ever admit it even on the darkest night or in her weakest moment, but part of her missed Hitomi too.  
  
It's not missing' her, exactly. She told herself, quietly, trying to rationalize the thought. It's more like, having her around would make Van happy. Satisfied that it was a logical and uncomplicated explanation, she looked back at the fortress.   
  
Van hadn't told her in so many words, but she knew that Hitomi was part of what he was searching for. There was something else, something important, that she couldn't quite place her finger on, that he seemed to be after. She sighed quietly. Only time would tell, but in her heart, all she really wanted was for all of this blind confusion to go away and let the world run the way it was supposed to.   
  
A voice called from further down the wall, back toward the fortress. Merle waved at the princess uncommitted, not really wanting to go back toward her but not having a real reason to stay where she was. One last look up at the sky and she went, wishing with all of her being for Van to find what he was looking for and then come home.  
  
* * *  
  
Though the Escaflowne shuddered in the force of the wind, Van kept his course without wavering. The snow was now so thick in the air that he was forced to wrap his scarf over most of his face to keep it out of his eyes, and even then a solitary flake would find its way through his defenses and make him jump a little.  
  
The biting wind didn't bother him at all, which was odd. Normally he hated the cold almost as much as he hated the heat, but just now, it seemed more than fitting. There was an eerie sheen to the ground below him, like the moons or the sun were too close to the surface. He couldn't say which was correct, because the veil of gray overhead was so thick that nothing could be seen through it. Only the weak light told him that there was anything on the other side at all.  
  
Whatever the pale beacon was, he was losing it quickly. Since he knew his overall destination, he was sure that once it was gone, it would be a very long time before he saw it again. The Asgard continent was forever concealed in darkness, a perfect refuge for any who might hope to hide from the world.   
  
For the last two weeks, Van had done the best he could, speaking with as many locals as he could find about what could have possibly happened to Zaibach. Though he got no conclusive answers and many of the leads brought him to dead ends, there was a peculiar pulling in the back of his mind that drew him here again. It was ahead of him, in the darkened confines of the forgotten continent, that his mother had appeared to him and given him the power he needed to oppose Zaibach.   
  
It had taken him so long to come to terms with the loss of his family, but it had finally happened. His mother's loss, and the ambiguous but assumed death of Folken had been dealt with, their monuments in Fanelia never without roses or laurels. It was hateful for him to go back to the last place he'd ever seen his mother, hoping against hope for some clue as to the whereabouts to a fallen empire.   
  
The further he went, the darker the sky grew overhead. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was an odd familiarity here, something totally unrelated to the fact that he'd been there before. Something was definitely off, but he couldn't put his finger on what it might be.  
  
Bright and shining in the chest of the armor, the Escaflowne's energist was like a star trapped on the ground, lending an eerie sheen to the snow. Under the strands of mist, Van could just barely make out an object up ahead, much too oddly shaped to be a crag or some other natural formation. There weren't any buildings on Asgard, as far as he knew, and he couldn't stop the hope and the dread from pouring into his throat as he watched it.  
  
The dark structure was domed, an awkward black outline that gave him no real impression of what it might look like in detail. He knew what it was - he'd seen it before, but it seemed so grotesquely out of place that it was difficult for him to remind himself of that.  
  
The Dilate? He spoke at last to the grasping silence of the eternal night. That doesn't make any sense! Why would there be a floating fortress perched on a promontory in the middle of this wasteland when even the foundation stones in the Zaibach capital were gone? He noticed now that the fortress was not the only thing out of place - below it, more buildings sprouted ominously, waiting for him with malcontent. Engaging the gears around him once more, Van set off with a newer will. Whether it made sense or not, he was close to gaining some sort of an explanation.  
  
* * *  
  
When she saw him in the screen, she rose. There were no surprises here - she'd been expecting this, and it was all coming to pass just as it should. In moments the guymelef would land and Van would find himself in the midst of Zaibach... *her* Zaibach, built with her own hands and her own wishes, paid for by this very confrontation. His arrival was her penalty for using the power to her own ends, but she'd been expecting that as well, and was prepared for it.  
  
Gripping her pendant in white hands, she looked at the great machine suspended above her, slowly turning without concern for the rest of the world. They were very much alike, herself and the device. Standing here in the dimness, they waited together.  
  
  
  
  
Ollen70: Odd place to leave off - sorry if it seems like I'm milking the whole cliffhanger thing, but I don't really want to rush the next chapter. I have a basic plan, but I want to take some time to develop it so it doesn't turn out badly. I promise I'll have it up in around a week, okay? So now if you'd please put down all those things you were gonna throw at me...  
  
To Macky: To be totally honest, I hadn't even considered doing that. I only introduced one character in The Parts that Break the Whole, and I don't think she'd fit in so well with the context of this story. But I might give it a shot later on and see what happens. Thanks for reviewing.  
  
And to Rai Dorian, Atari =), Wink57CS, Feathers of Snow, and burnt ashes, I have to say thank you so much for reading and responding.   
  
I need to give a special thank you to Rai Dorian for featuring me as her author of the month, even though I don't deserve it. You're too good to me. =)


	4. Far away from here

Ollen70: I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to post this chapter, but for once it wasn't because of a lack of motivation. It's been done for several weeks, but my computer has been in the shop because of a modem problem.   
  
As always, thanks go out to Macky, Wink57CS, Feathers of Snow, snow blossoms, Rai Dorian, Atari, and Esca-lover. You're all wonderful, wonderful people. =)   
  
  
Disclaimer: The characters represented here don't belong to me. I mean no disrespect to their creator by writing this.  
  
  
  
  
  
Chapter Four - - Far away from here  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.   
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.   
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,   
a formula, a phrase remains, but the best is lost.  
- - Edna St. Vincent Millay  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
  
The courtyard that the Escaflowne landed in was as dead and frozen as all other parts of the continent. A few feet away, a scraggly branch jutted from the snow as a testament that there may have once been life in this place, but it was defeated by the sheer magnitude of the cold.  
High above him, the half-ruined remains of the Dilate sat with ill-deserved opulence. He followed the broken stone staircase upward, looking over the scaffolds and turrets of the city below him. There were no lights in the windows, and he began to wonder if anyone other than a handful of very unlucky souls lived there at all. He saw several guards in their ice blue guymelefs on his way, and he was sure that they could hardly have missed seeing him, but they made no move to approach or intercept him.   
That confused him to no end. What good were guards if they weren't guarding everything? Of course, he couldn't dismiss the thought that whoever moved the Dilate here was really expecting him to come. That thought, more than the freezing wind, sent chills down his spine.  
  
Closed tightly against the cold, the high-arched metal doors before him needed all the strength he had to force them open, and he stumbled forward with relief into an even thicker darkness. Oddly, though he wasn't shaking anymore from the cold, it didn't feel any warmer.   
  
Without waiting for his eyes to finish adjusting, he headed forward as best he could. The interior of the Dilate wasn't what he had been expecting- at least, it wasn't anything like the Vione had been.   
  
The dome he entered was high and majestic, draped with fine tapestries and other oddities that seemed fairly out of place, for Zaibach. He looked around cautiously, finally venturing up the tall iron stairway that spiraled into the heart of the hall. His entire body seized when he saw the impressive device suspended just beyond the first reaches of his vision. Though he'd only seen it once before when he, Hitomi, and Allen were prisoners of the Empire, he would have known it anywhere instantly.  
  
What is this? He called to the empty room, challenging anyone who might be lurking in the shadows. Who's there?  
  
And so it begins at last. The voice, though calm and soft, was absolutely the last thing he'd expected. He whirled around, sword unsheathed, ready to strike down its owner at a moment's notice.   
  
Good to see you again, Van.   
  
He felt sick. It would have been better if none of this had made sense, like he tried to tell himself, but the truth wouldn't be denied. He knew when he started searching that he would eventually find her again, and that the circumstances of their reunion would not be happy.   
  
And you've taken over Zaibach. It wasn't a question so much as an aphorism. Apparently she wasn't a prisoner here. Now that she'd stepped forward enough for him to get a real look at her, he found that it was very much like looking at someone else. She wore splendid robes of moon pale silk, embroidered painstakingly with silver threads. On her head was a dressing of veils, each as elaborate in their own right as her robes.   
  
Indeed. I control fate now, to a degree. If you came to convince me to return, I'm sorry but I won't do that. I've finally found my place in life.  
  
You didn't want me to come... he started cautiously, willing the noxious fume of panic in despair welling up through him to disperse, but you let me find this place. Why? If nothing else, he owed her that simple explanation.   
  
There are certain wishes that must be granted, whether I want them to be or not. There are certain situations that I have no influence over, but I'm gaining more power all the time. Someday, even the things I can't wish for now will be open to me...  
  
Things you can't wish for now...?   
  
Folken, the Duke of Freid, even the old Emperor...I can't wish for their lives back. Maybe someday, when I've perfected the use of the power totally, I'll be able to grant those sorts of wishes.   
  
Is your life, the people you're going to leave behind, worth all of this? Think of all the things you're going to sacrifice! If he was sounding frantic, and he knew that he probably was, he didn't care. He had to make her see what she was doing - and why it was wrong. Failing that, he had to somehow get her away from there and destroy the device. She continued to watch him closely, then shrugged without commitment.  
  
That is the way of things. Even the most powerful people don't always have control of their lives... power usually means one must surrender to fate, to a degree. But I refuse to. She looked at the great device overhead, her back to Van. I can manipulate fate far better than Dornkirk ever could. Her fingers danced for a moment over the pendant at her neck, and Van noticed for the first time that the gem itself was an odd, green hue rather than the familiar rose-pink. I'll overcome my limitations, and I'll drive back the darkness.   
  
You're no better than he was... Van started, cold sweat beading on his brow. You've lost yourself... you'll destroy yourself, and the ones you used to love.  
  
Don't try to stop me, Van. You can't change my mind and it would be pointless for you to kill me here. The confliction between action and reaction are at their very strongest in this hall. That same conflict cost your brother his life when he faced Dornkirk.  
  
Kill her? Van glanced down at his sword, only numbly aware of her comment regarding Folken. He'd searched for her within himself and throughout the world for so long... did she really think he could even be capable of doing something like that?  
  
He looked up again at the face before him, wishing he could recognize it.   
  
What's happened to you? Who are you?  
  
A cold smile graced her lips.   
  
So you begin to understand. Everything is changing... why did you think that we wouldn't be affected? As she spoke, her hand returned again and again to the pendant, almost like she either had to keep reminding herself what it felt like, or that the feeling was so engrossing that she actually couldn't help but touch it.  
  
I don't think I do, he said, meaning it. What you've done... these actions don't fit you. You're borrowing someone else's fate. At her scoff, he frowned slightly. This wasn't what was meant for you, I can tell you that much.   
  
Don't explain fate to me! she cried, her features suddenly livid. You think you know more of this than you do! I understand my role, and I will accept my own consequences!  
  
Why did this happen to us, Hitomi? He asked her softly, feeling his heart break. What did we do wrong?  
  
* * *  
  
Very high above her, one star streaked across the clear night sky. She had only a few moments to gaze up at the clear, cold light before the sun came over the horizon, so she kept her mind on her goal. All of the rest of Fanelia was asleep, but Merle had been drawn to the ramparts again, her thoughts on Van.  
  
When she was younger, she used to listen to King Goau tell stories to the two of them before the night. Though many were about dragons and battles and the glory of the old kings of Fanelia, the stories that interested him the most always had to do with stars.   
  
To her, they were as endless as the possibilities of the world. The light of one star was small, almost insignificant, but their combined majesty was totally unquestionable. When she felt small or alone, she could look up above her and feel safer. She could tell the stars her secrets, her dreams, her wishes...  
  
* * *  
  
From looking into his eyes at the first, Hitomi had known that it wasn't going to be easy. There would be no convincing him, but she wasn't prepared for how hard it would really be to look at him again and face his open incredulity and scorn. He couldn't accept what she had done for him - for everyone, really - and she had hoped that maybe knowing that he was ignorant would ease some of the pain she was feeling. She wasn't surprised when it didn't.   
  
But now, her mind was made up. Those sad eyes would have convinced her, even if she'd come to a different conclusion. Lifting her hands up, she called the light of the device into them. Van's pain would ebb, and because of that, she was willing to follow through. Her own pain, however, would linger.  
  
When the green light that had grown from her was gone, she slumped down on the jet black floor below her, alone.  
  
She lifted her eyes and watched the nearby destiny screen with a horrible sense of loss and yet an enduring satisfaction. Van would not think of her again - her wish guaranteed it, now that she'd requested with all of her being another, happier fate for him. She had wanted to wish for his acceptance, but that was something she wasn't prepared to do. It would be easier to see him in the arms of someone else than to spend her life knowing that the love he gave her was only there because his values had been compromised.   
  
She rose at last, giving the screen one last longing glance. Destiny was a cruel thing, she told herself, when you were on the wrong side of it. Of course, she knew that her purpose was bigger than any one life or any one person's happiness, so there was some degree of comfort in the soft green glow around her. But not as much as she desired.   
  
Van was gone forever. There was nothing more for her to gain from thinking about him, and for a moment, she considered wishing away all memory of him entirely. For some reason she couldn't bring herself to complete the wish, though she told herself that it was always an option that she could fall back on.   
  
Today, like all days, would be eventful for her. With this current situation more or less dealt with, she could go back to the time-consuming, difficult work of manipulating fate.   
  
Searching at her throat, her fingers wandered back and forth, looking again for the pendant. Anymore, it was the only friend she had in this desolate, unkind world. She was going to change that, though. Dwelling on the new world she was going to build was a pleasant way to pass the time, even though it kept her from noticing the flicker growing in the destiny machine above her.   
  
* * *  
  
Merle stood stone still, absolutely certain that something horribly wrong had just happened. Her hands were empty only a few moments ago - it was one fact that she would have staked her life on. But now, for reasons that she couldn't even begin to explain or understand, a silver chain with a peculiar green gem was curled around them.   
  
  
* * *  
  
The covers over his bare chest were warm and soft. He came from under the spell of sleep very slowly, drawing back the white sheets as he tried to rise. A sudden murmur and a peculiar tensing at his back took him slightly off guard. When a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind and bore him back down to the bed, he didn't fight them. The arms were soft and compassionate, shielding and holding him near, meaning him no harm.  
  
In them he was perfectly content, watching as the first traces of a winter morning started to appear outside the high-paned windows. That was another world, though, one that was very far and very detached from this particular moment, and for that reason he was willing to lay there without contemplating anything. Something told him that his contentment was fake, but it was easy to ignore just then.   
  
One of the arms left him for a brief moment and caught hold of the covers in order to draw them back up again. His eyes followed it as it went delicately past his shoulder, down over his side. It was then that he noticed the long, blond hair splayed over his body like a golden cloak.   
  
Van turned, rolling into the embrace. Halfway over, his lips met those of Eries.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
Ollen70: If you're wondering, I actually do expect to be shot for the ending of this chapter. That is, if you can actually follow it at all. It's so scattered that I'm almost embarrassed to post it, but I promise a lot of what happens here will be more fully explained later on.   



	5. When will I be free?

Ollen70: Yeah, most of you are a little upset over the Van and Eries' thing, but give it some time. It won't be totally explained quite yet, but I'll get there. =)  
  
Anyway, thanks to all of you who reviewed. It always helps me focus when I know that people are actually reading what I'm writing. It also helps me stay a little more motivated. So, thanks again. =) I very much appreciate it.   
  
Disclaimer: My fate is to not own the Visions of Escaflowne or the characters within it. Maybe someday I can alter fate, but it won't be any time soon. So far, the Destiny Machine that I've built in my back yard only predicts soap opera plots.   
  
  
  
Chapter Five - - When will I be free?  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
You must still choose the pattern, and so must each of you poor, perplexed fledglings, as long as thread remains to be woven.  
But no longer do I see mine clearly, Taran cried. No longer do I understand my own heart. Why does my grief shadow my joy? Tell me this much. Give me to know this, as one last boon.  
Dear child, said Orddu, smiling sadly, when, in truth, did we really give you anything?  
  
- - Excerpt from Lloyd Alexander's The High King  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
Merle readied herself, donning the heavy tabbard that was woven with metal fibers to make it more protective. Around her, the soldiers of the reborn Fanelia readied their swords and spears with a dark vehemence, their eyes as filled with malice as her own.   
  
Millerna hadn't believed her when Merle had gone to her and explained that so much was wrong in the world. Van's prolonged absence had worried Merle so much that she bit back her usually stubbornness and went into Millerna's guest chambers to explain her fears. The princess had actually laughed out loud when she heard Merle's account of Van's mission to find the remains of Zaibach.   
  
Surely you must remember? The humor never left Millerna's face when she spoke. It grew and was mixed with incredulity when Merle only stared back blankly. He and Eries are betrothed! In a matter of weeks, my sister will be his wife!  
  
Merle hadn't trusted herself to respond to that. It all truth, she had absolutely no idea what to say. Was everyone in the world completely mad? Why on earth would Van have gone and done something like that, especially when he was so wrapped up in Hitomi, the strange girl from the mystic moon? And why, for no explainable reason at all, was a pendant that looked suspiciously like the one that Hitomi wore, now around Merle's neck?  
  
Of course there were no answers. Merle quietly told each of the soldiers of Fanelia her concerns in quiet confidence, willing them silently to believe her. To her astonishment, no one called her a liar or seemed to remember anything about the engagement Millerna had spoken of.   
  
Though she wanted desperately to find and confront Van, she had the sinking feeling that it would come to no good. Something was terribly amiss, something foreboding and black, and she would not leave the kingdom undefended. She sent two soldiers with orders to fetch Van back if they could, but knew well that they would not meet with success.   
  
Whatever was wrong with the rest of the world had most definitely effected Van as well, if he hadn't found the engagement to the elder princess of Asturia to be incredibly odd on his own. That was a matter that she certainly had to investigate, but there were other things that weighed heavily on her mind.   
  
What had happened to Zaibach? No one seemed interested in that question any more, which was even more disturbing than everything else that was going wrong. If no one would tell her, she would have to find out on her own. Millerna certainly wasn't going to stop her, even if she had the gall to try. Hitomi only got the better of her because Merle knew lord Van was so attached to her. She wasn't about to be held back by a mere princess, even one with the fire of Millerna.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Hitomi watched the goings on below her with a wry sense of satisfaction. The silver-gray guymelefs were assembled in tight ranks under her balcony, awaiting inspection before being put to use. She was pleased that so many had been completed in so short a time. Her powers of influence over destiny might have been horribly weakened by the loss of the pendant, but she still had enough sway over fortune to ensure that efficiency was strictly on her side.   
  
The loss of the pendant had been a horrible blow. It was so restraining that even now she wasn't exactly sure how it had happened. Though she still had the destiny screen, looking at it without the clarity the pendant provided was a bit like looking at a reflection in a mud puddle instead of a mirror. Everything was distorted and even the clearest of the images were still incredibly vague.   
  
She was by no means helpless - the army below her, their guymelefs totally state of the art, was a grand testament to this fact. Her power could manipulate the thoughts and minds of people enough to let her forces move through and conquer nations one by one until she regained what was hers.   
  
Milady, we are ready. A tall young man with brown hair and well fitted armor emerged on the balcony, bowing very deeply.   
  
I'm glad, general. You've kept me waiting. She nodded at him curtly. Like all the others in her empire, he had come when her wishes had summoned him. Many of her soldiers had been in the service of the old Zaibach, and their fortunes had been all too easy to manipulate. The others came from similar situations, either as thieves and mercenaries, none possessing the mental fortitude to resist her when she took it upon herself to rewrite their fates. Their destinies were now tied to hers and to the future of the Zaibach. Van probably wouldn't even recognize this place, though she laughed lightly to herself at the thought. Because she'd altered his fate before the loss of the pendant, no one else knew that Zaibach still existed. They could take every kingdom on Gaea completely by surprise when they chose to attack.  
  
Is my Guymelef ready?  
  
I prepared it myself.  
  
  
  
The great, golden war machine had been constructed according to her specific instructions. Inside, a smaller version of the destiny prognostication engine turned ceaselessly, offering her a way to keep the odds in her own favor. She was totally inexperienced in the art of piloting a guymelef, but that wouldn't keep her from joining the search. This way, even though she would stand clear of the actual battles, she could give her army a very great advantage just through her presence.   
  
Approaching the massive machine slowly, she paused for a moment to admire it. Burnished brilliantly, it shone in the cold blue iridescence around her that couldn't totally be called light. It's shoulders were broad and well-built, supporting a deep face-plate under the heavy, gem-studded crown that adorned it. Smiling in reply to the anxiousness on the face of the general, she scaled the built-in ramp and took her place in the pilot's compartment, lowering the face-plate when she was situated. Around her, the assembled army cheered. Their time had come once again.   
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
And they had the nerve to turn you away? Merle cried furiously. What's this world coming to?   
  
We gave them your documents, but the guards never even acknowledged our authority, the knight before her said humbly. We were told that only the princess Millerna will be allowed in and out of the palace grounds until the preparations for the wedding are complete.  
  
Why the secrecy? She asked, more to herself than to him. None of this made any sense, but that in itself came as no surprise. Nothing made any sense anymore. The whole world was going crazy and Merle didn't know what to make of it.   
  
No one knows.  
  
With that, the two men left. Merle sat alone in her quarters, as unnerved as she could ever remember being. Didn't anyone find it strange that the king of Fanelia was more or less held captive in the palace of Asturia? No one had even seen him there - all she had to go on was Millerna's word. For all anyone knew, this could be some sort of very elaborate cover. That didn't seem very likely, though.   
  
She sank her claws irritably into the dark oak of the chair beneath her. Millerna wasn't the type to lie. Or, at the very least, she wasn't the type to lie well. Everything about her, from her voice to the way she carried herself, told Merle that she totally believed everything she'd said.   
  
Pacing past her canopy bed and batting absently at the bright tapestries hanging from the walls and ceilings. She shouldn't have to be in this position. Fanelia wasn't her country, after all. This sort of a situation was so far beyond her that the obscurity of it all made her want to laugh out loud. Even when she was little, Merle had been well-acquainted with royalty and had absolutely no delusions about being a queen or a princess. More than once, she'd told Van primly about how rude and stuck up royalty was, just to get a response out of him.   
  
It hadn't been true, though. The rulers of Fanelia were weathered, time-hardened people who didn't balk from difficulty and didn't expect Gaea to throw itself at their feet. Van had learned from hardship, just as she had. He was the embodiment of a ruler, completely unwilling to give up on any task because failure in and of itself was simply unacceptable to him. In that way, the two of them were very much alike.   
  
Merle stood for a moment, pondering the truth that her own wandering mind had inadvertently stumbled upon. Van should have been searching for Zaibach, not spending time at the castle of Asturia. The realization she'd just arrived at proved that fact. And if he had decided that the mission was impossible, he would have immediately returned to Fanelia. After all, Millerna was separated from her husband and king as an unrequested favor to Van. He certainly understood responsibility and debt to not linger along the way, knowing well what Millerna and Dryden meant to each other.  
  
So then, the only realistic conclusion she could come to was that someone wasn't playing fair. Who it was, she didn't have the slightest idea. Eries wasn't the type of woman to propagate something like this from what little Merle knew of her. There was no bad blood between Fanelia and Asturia, especially after the close covenant formed between them at the close of the Destiny war. But then there was still the problem of the marriage.  
  
Van wasn't the type of person to marry simply for ceremony. As far as her mind could conceive, if Van had been on his mission - and she knew he would have been - there could have been no instance when he could have spent enough time around Eries to even get to know her, much less fall in love. All she could do with this information, though, was remind herself that it all made absolutely no sense whatsoever.   
  
With a savage glare, Merle gripped the pendant around her neck angrily. Everything started going wrong after it had come to her. That wasn't something she wanted to think about too heavily, and while she'd considered flinging it from the roof of the castle more than once, she was actually a little too frightened of it to do so. At first glance, it sort of resembled Hitomi's pendant, save for the color of the stone. But Hitomi was gone, her pendant lost with her. How and why this particular trinket existed, she didn't know or, at the moment, truly care.  
  
Watching the brightness of the morning sun touch the snow-bound mountains to the west from her window, she leaned forward against the sill and arched her back. If no one was going to give her answers, there was only one course of action. Her soldiers might be sent away with no information, but Merle was not one to be easily deterred - it was a value she'd garnered from Van and clutched jealously. She would find her own answers, and no one was going to stop her.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
We're approaching the target. Hitomi heard the almost metallic voice of the general through the communications device of her guymelef and nodded anyway, knowing well that she couldn't be seen through the armor.   
  
Prepare the first wave for the initial assault. Have the next three in position at once. She sounded harsh even in her own ears, but it didn't bother her. She wasn't warm anymore, wasn't caring and full, and though it saddened her from time to time, she also had power now. That was something she didn't have before.   
  
We're counting thirteen Chesario guymelefs. They don't seem to have spotted us yet.  
  
Stay alert. We'll take them all down in the first attack. Of course Chesario hadn't spotted them yet. If by some miracle they'd managed to detect the phantom-like wavers in the air as the cloaked guymelefs approached, they wouldn't report them. As far as the world was concerned, Zaibach didn't exist. No one was prepared to throw back any kind of assault, which meant the entire world was open prey for her. It also meant that there could be no survivors left here - if the remaining men couldn't be swayed by the power of her wishes, she'd have no choice but to kill them. It was the only way to protect the overwhelming advantage of surprise that they now possessed. Their enemies didn't stand a chance.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Milady, we are ready.   
  
Merle broke from her reverie to look over the established vanguard. She hadn't asked them to assemble, and was a little upset at them arriving. These last few months had taught her to appreciate being alone. This was her situation, not theirs, but the expression in the eyes of the young captain nearest to her kept her from doing anything other than nodding. She wasn't quite sure when they'd started referring to her as milady,' but it wasn't important enough for her to say anything.   
  
Before her towered four of the most impressive guymelefs in Fanelia. They had all been constructed according to the schematics Van had found in Folken's lab in Asturia after his brother had forsaken Zaibach. Unlike traditional guymelefs, the energist locations on these were hidden beneath layers of plate armor and weren't apparent at all. Several panels of mesh-like metal on the main bodies, just below the arms of each machine, hinted at some sort of important structure concealed behind them, but that had been done intentionally.   
  
The mesh served as an exhaust-port, nothing more. If an enemy successfully struck into one of them, not only would they inflict no damage on the machine or the pilot, they would leave themselves totally vulnerable to a counter-attack that they wouldn't be expecting. Folken was truly a genius when it came to machinery. As much as Merle spat at his memory, that was one fact that she would never have thought to deny.   
  
With no more hesitation, Merle clambered up the side of one of the hulking machines and braced herself carefully. A guymelef had actually been constructed specifically for her, and while she told herself that she would use it if the need actually arose, she much preferred riding on the outside of one. It wasn't nearly as stuffy or nerve-racking. She had found herself with enough responsibility as it was without having to manage a war machine as well.   
  
Merle braced herself gallantly at the first few halting strides of the guymelef before her muscles caught into the pattern of the jolts. In awhile, she barely noticed the lumbering steps, too busy watching the snow-lightened forests through which they traveled.   
  
It was easy for her to totally lose herself in the falling petals of ice, and for that she was very grateful. Until they reached Asturia, she could pretend like her troubles weren't actually real. It was only a delusion, but it made her feel safer just the same.   
  
Who goes there?   
  
She was nearly flung from her perch when her soldier's contrivance stopped stone still in the icy roadway. Before she could cry out at him, a tattered figure ducked down off the higher embankment and made for the trees nearby, obviously intent on getting away unseen. From what she could tell, the figure meant them no harm - it was more as if he thought they might be pursuing him.   
  
Leaving no time for clarifying self-doubt, Merle drove into action. Though even from behind the man was very apparently larger than she, he was also much slower. In a flash she was off the metallic shoulder and out among the tree trunks. It was surprising how liberating it felt to run after something; to have an actual goal rather than to be trapped inside a situation that she didn't understand. This was all much simpler. A man was running, and she was chasing - or rather, catching - him.   
  
A flying tackle to the waist, a little pressure from her claws at his pale throat, and the pursuit was over. She wrested angrily until the man was on his back on the frozen turf and began pulling away the dark, thread-bare cloth he'd shrouded his body with, wishing that all of this trouble might end up leading her somewhere useful, even though that was very unlikely. The first thing she saw under his wrappings was an elegant, high bridged nose, then a flash of golden hair...  
  
If the incredulity in her voice was stunning to him, then he was certainly feeling no more shock than she was. What's going on? She demanded, aware that her tone was hard and accusatory. Why are you dressed like a beggar? Why were you running from us?  
  
Let me up, Merle. He demanded in return. I won't tell you anything until you get off of me. The staggering of his voice reminded her that she'd started shaking him, and she eased her grip only very slightly when she stepped back far enough so that he could stand.   
  
For all his usually regal bearings, Allen looked terrible. His fair eyes were ringed with black, matching the bruises that blossomed treasonously on his wrists and face. He only wore a pair of trousers under his black cloak, but they were in such poor repair that she didn't expect them to hold up for long. How had he survived in this cold dressed like this?   
  
Not a pretty sight, am I? He scoffed lightly, addressing her unasked question. He moved unsteadily, prompting Merle to notice the long cuts around his ankles, either from running through briars or from something more sinister. The sallow look to his flawless skin worried her as well.   
  
* * *  
  
Sitting in the inn that wasn't more than three leagues from where they'd come across Allen, Merle watched the golden knight eat with an odd fascination. The bread and heavy, starch-laden gravy vanished into his mouth at an astonishing rate. Just how long has it been since he'd been fed, anyway? Taking a long, frantic pull at his mug ale, he finally slowed enough to eye her shrewdly.   
  
I don't need your pity, Merle. It took her off-guard to realize that he must have seen it in her face. The high knight of Asturia had fallen a very long way, and before she thought, she said as much.   
  
Times change. He replied coldly. Two weeks ago, I was dismissed from my post. Though that admission actually generated as many or more questions than it answered, Merle thought it wise to keep quiet. Allen had told her all that he was going to at the moment.   
  
Sighing to herself, she passed an ample supply of coin into the hands of the bartender and waited for Allen to finish downing his meal. Fortunately for her, the treasurers of Fanelia knew well that Van's hand opened into hers and that she would serve as a sort of unofficial Chancellor in times of crisis - which this whole situation was fast becoming - so they didn't question her when she filled her wallet generously before departing.   
  
She could already tell that keeping Allen around wasn't going to be an inexpensive ordeal. She'd sent two of the soldiers to find a tailor and have respectable garments sewn, and to fetch some sort of ointment for the cuts on his legs. There was undeniably more to this story than what she'd been told, but that would have to wait. If nothing else, Allen was an old ally of Van's. Whether Van would admit it or not, the young king would have died more than once if it hadn't been for Allen's timely intervention.  
  
It was a debt that she was only too happy to repay, regardless of the trouble it caused now or later on. And from the sound of things, Allen's surprise dismissal and the odd turn of events concerning Van might in some way have been connected. If there was any information he could eventually yield as to what was going wrong, then he was ultimately worth any price. Smiling wryly to herself as she guided Allen carefully up the stairs and to his room, she wondered if things might be going more in her favor than she'd first assumed.   
  
  
Ollen70: Just trust me when I say that we're going somewhere with all of this. I should have the next chapter up much sooner than this one (hopefully inside of a week) because my computer is actually working now.   



	6. Self affliction

Ollen70: I'm actually very flattered that so many of you like this story, and that so many of you commented on my representation of Merle. I know she was mainly used for comic relief in the series, but I think there's a lot more to her below the surface. Plus, she's a fun character to write about.   
  
Sorry that this is short, but I'm supposed to go to the Sun Bowl with my college football team in three days and I'm totally not ready. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, since I'm not a very big fan of football. Anyway, I promise that I'll write while I'm on the plane and try to have the next chapter in working order before I get back.   
  
As always, thank you to all of my readers, and to all of you who took the time to review: Macky, Wink57CS, Rai Dorian, Inda, Kaurin, Dilandau-is-my-boyfriend, thanks so much for your input. As I've said before, it helps me shape the plot when I get feedback from readers. But then, since most of you are writers yourselves, I'm sure you already know that. Thanks again!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Visions of Escaflowne or any of the characters contained therein. Maybe that's for the best...  
  
  
  
  
Chapter Six - - Self-affliction  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
For all the history of grief  
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.  
For love  
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea - -   
Archibald Macleish - - Ars Poetica  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
At first, all Hitomi felt was heartache. Not only was the kingdom around her nothing more than ice and ash, there had been no sign of her pendant anywhere. All of the death, all of the destruction was utterly without a point.  
  
In spite of their very tremendous advantage, the Chesario had managed to kill three of her men even through their stealth-cloaks. This more than anything else had absolutely sickened Hitomi when she'd heard it. Apparently the Chesario had developed some sort of remedial counter-measure for the cloaking system, and she wasn't going to risk battle with any other nation until she could be absolutely certain that it wouldn't happen again.   
  
We are prepared to move out, majesty. The general stood several paces away, watching her warily. She leaned idly against her guymelef, aware that she wasn't striking a particularly regal pose at the moment.   
  
Belay that order, general. I want to take and be prepared to hold this territory before we set out again.  
  
I'll order the dilate and the rest of our encampment to depart from Asgard. He turned at once, pausing when Hitomi caught a hand on the hem of his cloak.  
  
Keep them where they are. Asgard will still serve as our primary capital She returned his gaze, ordering away all his incredulity with the curl of her lips. Are you refusing to comply, general?  
  
N..no, my lady... he stammered suddenly, taken aback by her calm inquiry. She let him flounder, keeping her eyes and expression flat, giving nothing away. Forgive me, but the fields of old Zaibach are barren. We could retake our former capital, rebuild everything that was lost...  
  
And what would we accomplish by that? Asgard and the mystic valley hold the key to the redirection of fate, even though the gateway was destroyed. If we abandon it, our tactical power will weaken. She turned away from him, still watching him intently in the reflective armor of her guymelef. The general frowned in an odd mix of consternation and relative annoyance.   
  
Zaibach has ever been hosted on those plains. They are of importance to our history, to our culture. If we leave them behind, we lose much.  
  
We are no longer the Zaibach empire, captain, she told him studiously, alerting him to his mistake. Zaibach has been dead for months, and it was never my wish to revive it - simply to use it to what extent that I could. She deliberately gave him no quarter, only stared blankly into his blue eyes, willing him to break the contact first. We are the Asgard empire, and we will build our own future from now on.  
  
Yes, milady. He bowed deeply, defeated. She allowed a dark frown to stain her face until he was far from view, then let a smile break the surface. She was on the brink of reaching her goals, and no one was going to stop her. Once she regained the power of the pendant, the world would belong to her.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
Merle tried once, forcing patience into her tone with great difficulty. The golden knight breathed deeply, his face pressed into her shoulder and back and his arms limp around her.   
  
A little firmer this time, she shook him slightly by rocking her shoulders, urging him to wake up, but it proved fruitless. The knight was hunched over behind her in the saddle, all of his considerable weight resting on her.   
  
Oh for crying out loud... she murmured quietly to herself. WAKE UP!! At that he bolted up right and she only barely managed to account for his new momentum and catch him frantically before he toppled off the horse backwards.   
  
Though Merle would have been perfectly content to ride on a guymelef's shoulder as she was used to, Allen was another matter. When they'd finally decided to set out, she'd been forced to see about acquiring a horse, and to make matters ever more complicated, Allen was a very poor rider. Merle herself wasn't particularly experienced either, but Lord Folken had taught her and Van when they were both still very young, and it wasn't all that difficult for her to pick it back up again.  
  
And so, with that, Merle found herself riding on a very large horse with a former knight of heaven drowsing fitfully behind her while she followed the guymelefs in front of her at a very generous distance. The horse couldn't come very close without spooking and nearly throwing the both of them, and she thought for once that maybe horses weren't as stupid as she'd assumed. She certainly didn't appreciate riding anywhere near the clomping, metallic feet of the war machines, so she kept back without complaint.   
  
Wha.. what? Merle, what's wrong? Allen leaned out around her, obviously disoriented and still exhausted. Glancing over her shoulder, she tried not to smile at the sleepy, very annoyed expression on his face. Though the rest, food, and well-tailored garments had done him a great deal of good, he still maintained a sickly, fragile look that was startlingly out of place on him.   
  
It's time you started talking. She said brusquely, masking the fact that she'd actually wakened him because her back was starting to cramp badly. Looking backward over her shoulder, she waited while he adjusted the loose, olive green tunic and cream sash, hand positioning the new sword she'd bought him idly.   
  
What prompted this? He asked, apparently attempting to dodge the question.   
  
We'll be in Asturia in two days, maybe less. I want to know everything you can tell me about Van. This was the first time she'd mentioned anything about her motives to him, primarily because he'd never actually asked and she wasn't convinced that he'd believe her even if she did tell him.   
  
What do you mean? He wiped a sleeve over his face. You're his closest friend. I'm sure you know more about him than anyone else.  
  
Taking a very deep, reluctant breath, Merle began to tell Allen of Van's initial search for Zaibach, wishing with all her heart that he might remember something of use to her. They were on their way to Palas, but beyond that, Merle had no idea what was going to happen. If Allen knew anything at all, it would be of great use to them.   
  
His expression, when she'd finally finished recounting everything, was an odd one. He stared off in the distance for a moment, and Merle found herself wishing with every fiber of her being that this was a good sign - that, if he didn't have any information to share, he'd at least believe what she told him.   
  
Almost as soon as the plea crossed through her mind into the waiting silence of the world around her, the look on his face softened just a bit, his eyes smiling even though his lips didn't.  
  
The question, I suppose, is - he said slowly, choosing his words with uncustomary care, what does this mean for us? What are we going to do about all of this?  
  
Why were you dismissed, Allen? Merle asked at last. Allen's smile didn't fade, as she'd at first feared it would. She kept as much attention on him as she could while still keeping watch in front of her.   
  
I wasn't ever actually told why. It was simply done, though over the objections of the king and queen.  
  
What of Serena and the manor? Who in Asturia has enough authority to dismiss you over the objections of the king? Merle inquired, suddenly alarmed.  
  
As far as I know, Serena hasn't been touched. She's been allowed to keep the manor and the inheritance I left in keeping for her. Apparently, whatever charges that were brought against me didn't also apply to her. He seemed so much older than she remembered him. It was distressing to see this hero so careworn and almost fragile behind her, his arms about her waist feeling delicate and faint though they were strong. The king isn't above the law, Merle. He can object all he likes, but the magistrates and the chancellors still have more influence when it comes to matters of the courts. There wasn't anything he could do.  
  
And what about Van?  
  
I don't know. He told her bluntly. As I've said, I've been a bit preoccupied over the last few weeks. I wasn't even near the castle for quite some time. All of this could have been happening while I was in custody.  
  
But why would he agree to marry Eries? It doesn't make sense! Van wouldn't just make a decision like that! She cried out, more to herself than to him.   
  
We'll figure this out, Merle. She felt his face press into her shoulder again, his arms sheltering her despite their shortcomings. And though he wasn't at all how she remembered - expected - him to be, she drew comfort from him just the same. You'll see. In the end, we'll get everything back the way it's supposed to be.  
  
But how are things supposed to be?' Her mind asked. I don't think I know any more.'   
  
His voice, though, whispered just as plaintively in her ear.   
  
You'll see.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Good morning, my love. Eries smiled in spite of herself as she leaned over the still-sleeping form of the young king of Fanelia. There was a peculiar beauty to him as he slept, an innocence that wasn't as strong when he was awake.   
  
Though he didn't stir under the sound of her voice, she didn't call his name again. Instead, she rose from the bed and drew the covers back over him carefully. It was alright for him to sleep for a bit longer, when every vestige of him seemed to cry out with weariness.   
  
Making her way through the darkened corridors of the castle, she arrived at the bath house and removed her silk sleeping gown before sinking into the scented depths of the pool. She laid back against the wood and porcelain of the bath, letting her long golden tresses fall like golden rain into the water. Out of a small vial she poured a clear, viscous liquid into her hand and then rubbed it into her scalp, relishing the white foam that built up as she did.   
  
Van was a thousand times a paradox and a thousand times more than that. It was strange, in her mind, that though they had met before in the past, she hadn't felt so overwhelmed by him before. In fact, her old memories felt almost as though they weren't really hers at all - like she'd been living in someone else's body. But now, she was finally awake in her own mind again. They were going to be married soon, now that she once again was in control of her own fate.   
  
It was an easy decision for her to come to. Van deserved the kind of life that she could give him. He deserved to appreciate the fineries of life after so much loss and pain. and she was going to deny him nothing. Perhaps then, the darkness that still pressed in around him would be lifted at last. Perhaps the occasional doubt that filled his eyes, or the lapses when she wondered if he remembered his face at all would be gone, and they could live for one another and nothing else.   
  
Filling the white pitcher at her elbow with hot water, she poured it over her hair and washed the lather away. Standing at last, she wrapped a white towel around her. It was going to be a good day, she decided. There was no particular reason why it should be - their wedding wouldn't be for nearly another month, and there were no special events planned between now and then, but something lent to her a great feeling of comfort and security that she wasn't interested in questioning. She was going to enjoy the day, and that was that.   
  
  
  
Ollen70: There will be more in about a week and a half. Thanks for reading. If you're not totally happy with the pairings or direction of the plot at the moment, don't give up on me just yet. Things are about to get exciting... =)


	7. We who search for faith

  
Ollen70: I meant to post this sooner, but I haven't had power in my house for the past few days. It's snowing so much that everything's going absolutely crazy around here. That, and classes started back up two weeks ago, so I've been a little busy.   
  
Anyway, I want to say thank you' to Macky for reviewing the last chapter. Your comments and suggestions are really, truly appreciated.  
  
Disclaimer: The premise of the Vision of Escaflowne and the characters presented here are not original and no money is being made from this story.   
  
  
  
  
Chapter Seven - - We who search for faith  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
I watch the heavens but I find no calling.  
Something I can do to change what's coming.  
Stay close to me while the sky is falling.  
I don't want to be left alone...  
  
Sarah McLachlan - - World on Fire  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
The road to Asturia from Fanelia became more difficult by the hour. In fact, each minute that passed brought more and more snow until the air was full of swirling, cloying whiteness.   
  
Merle clung miserably to the back of the horse, her nose, fingers, and feet so hopelessly numb that she didn't even try to keep them warm any longer. Behind her, Allen shook violently as he held onto her, pressing as close as he could. His long hair was now white and moved stiffly when he turned his head, its ends so ensconced with ice that he looked a great deal like a living wind chime. Merle didn't stop herself from laughing at the thought - it kept her warmer, after all.   
  
Their path was growing narrower the further they went. It dropped off completely on their left, the slopes leading into the icy abyss without mercy. Not so far in front of her, the jarring clang of the guymelefs as they moved helped her judge their position, now that it was so hard to see.   
  
Van was never going to get to live this down, she decided grimly. It might have been very true that he would do the same for her in a heartbeat and that he wouldn't have lorded it over her, but there were benefits in being petty. Besides, thinking about harassing Van later on kept her from breaking down now.  
  
In a few days, if the storm held, they would reach Palas and this whole ordeal would be straightened out simply. If it let up, then there was a very good chance they could make it by the end of a single day.   
  
Allen, are you still alive? She called over her shoulder, nudging him in the chest lightly. His breath came in ragged gasps from behind her, hanging in the air in a small cloud before it was swept away.   
  
For now. He replied. To be heard, he'd almost had to shout over the roar of the wind. I've never seen snow so fierce before.  
  
Merle wasn't sure how true that comment was. It might have been more accurate to say that neither of them had ever been out alone in this sort of storm, since it snowed often with this sort of vigor in Palas and the higher territories around Fanelia.  
  
Being as this was neither here nor there, Merle just did her best to look ahead into the maelstrom and try not to think about anything in particular. The rhythmic thump of the pendant against her chest as the horse stumbled forward was fairly soothing to her, and soon she found that she was lost in its cadence. Closing her eyes for the briefest of instants, she let herself drift.   
  
In the darkness behind her eyelids was thick and kind, holding her in it's grip for awhile with a gentle grace. She would have been content to stay there forever, trapped between one world and the next, but a sudden flash tore her away from the peace.   
  
Fire roared everywhere. People ran screaming as unseen monsters destroyed homes and claimed lives. The ruins of a once-proud fortress hung in the midst in front of her, its walls sagging. Trees were burned carelessly, leaving only blackened corpses where elegant trunks had once been. And the snow that fell soon covered it all, doubling and redoubling the bleakness until Merle could barely force herself to look on. But, try as she might, looking away wasn't even possible. Image after image came, far too clear and too horribly real to be a dream.  
  
  
  
She fell back against something hard and warm, opening her eyes in absolute relief.   
  
What happened? She asked groggily, pressed up against Allen's chest. His arms were still around her, steadying her. Feeling awkward, she brushed them off. What's going on?  
  
I didn't know you were asleep. I thought I saw something moving up there on the hillside, and the horse just spooked.  
  
About to retort caustically that she hadn't been asleep, and that the storm was just playing tricks on him, she caught herself.   
  
What did it look like? She asked instead, obviously surprising him.  
  
Like... well, not really like anything. The snow was whirling in a strange way, almost like it was going around something...  
  
Like an invisible guymelef?   
  
  
  
Explaining whatever it was she'd just seen in her mind would take too long, so Merle settled by asking Allen if he knew of any fortress or city anywhere in these mountains. The memories were still hauntingly vivid. Leaning over her shoulder, Allen's face had lost none of it's skepticism at what, she imagined, must have been a very odd and very random series of statements from her. He didn't voice any of this, much to her relief, but only looked at her curiously for a few minutes longer before replying.  
  
There's an old Desrian fort not more than ten leagues from here, but I don't know where exactly.  
  
That's all I need to know. Merle spurred the horse forward, determined to catch the guymelefs and alert them to the change in orders.   
  
It was more of a challenge than an inquiry, but Merle paid no attention until Allen's fist closed tightly on her shoulder. What's going on?  
  
It isn't important, she snapped, keeping her eyes on the path in front of her. Just hang on.  
  
I want to know what's going on here! You owe me that much! His harsh bark matched her own tone in aggravation and unspoken threat.   
  
I don't owe you anything. I've already done more for you that you would have for me.  
  
Allen didn't respond to that. Merle suddenly felt a flush of shame at her words, but now wasn't the time for dissent. He was being stupid and stubborn, like always, and if it took a sharp tongue to deal with it, she wasn't about to spare him from it. They rode on in silence, tending to their own thoughts and their own hurts, each being further irritated as time wore on and the wrath of the skies above continued to thicken.  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
  
At the edge of the world, the familiar bright band of lucence lay in waiting. Was it the morning or the night that it heralded? Try as she might, Hitomi couldn't remember. And at any rate, it wasn't the time of day that concerned her right at this moment.  
  
I hold the crowns of Chesario, of Baslam and of Menrias. No nation can stand before the weight of the Asgard empire. She told the waning - or perhaps growing - light defiantly, as if it had challenged her claim.  
  
But then, in a way it had. The coming of morning meant another conflict with another nation, and another drive in the direction of success. Closer each day they came reaching for their goals but never quite claiming what she sought. What *they* sought, she corrected herself. This task she undertook was for the benefit of the people of Gaea, not for her alone. It was true that her desires drove it, but there were many upon whom she relied, and it was gratifying to learn that, as time pressed on, the number of nations and armies they faced dwindled considerably.  
  
Hitomi's own control over fate was growing so quickly that it made her heart soar to think of it. Even without the pendant, her ability to interpret and then influence the direction of fortune was greater than she could have imagined.   
  
Far below on the snow-covered stones of the courtyard, her army was assembling. Each soldier wore armor of steel, overlaid with a sash of midnight blue, embroidered with silver stars. Their black cloaks stirred in the growing wind, denying the snow that sought to cling to them.   
  
It was with this army that she was changing the world. Each morning found more men in her palaces and her ranks swelled until she was hard pressed to hold them all. This in turn forced her to plunder farther and farther afield in search of provision and clothing and suitable ore for guymelefs and armor.   
  
More than once she'd asked herself if she should continue her crusade - if the loss of her pendant hadn't been a sign that her motivations were flawed. But the nights were what drove her. In her dreams she saw horrible flashes of war and of bloodshed, of homes burned by men and women who simply took joy in death and violence, of children who stood alone and afraid by the still bodies of parents and siblings, of fathers who mourned for their sons and wives for their husbands, of lovers who lingered beside cold stone monuments that could never do justice to the beauty of the living that they guarded...  
  
She ran her hands over her face in a weak attempt at brushing the memories away. Sweat broke out across her brow in spite of the cold. In her hand, the sword she carried seemed so heavy, a burden that was almost beyond bearing. But she clutched at it anyway, her body refusing to let go even though there were times - many, in fact - when her mind pleaded for rest.   
  
Hitomi had taken up the power of destiny to defy Dornkirk and prove that the fate of war could be avoided. In all her campaigning, the deaths caused by the hand of her soldiers had been very few, because they hadn't been necessary. Her abilities let her influence nearly everyone she encountered, and only those with iron wills could resist when she asked them to join her cause.   
  
True, violence was necessary in order to overturn the nations, but how could war be possible once all of the people of Gaea were united under one bright banner? At last, Dornkirk would be proven wrong. Asgard would cover the entire world with its glory, uniting each person under common goals until the day came when they didn't require the destiny machine to cloud their minds and keep them from their foolish struggle.   
  
Maybe that day will never come,' a very private part of her mind whispered cruelly. What will you do then? Would you take away the will of all people if it turns out to be the only way to keep them from killing each other? What's more important? Freedom, or peace?'  
  
she whispered aloud into the day. I've sacrificed for it. Others should as well. So saying, she turned her back on the treacherous light. The balcony of the new fortress gave way to the dim interior, illuminated only weakly by lamps that seemed to only make the gloom around them more apparent. In a cold antechamber, the general stood waiting.  
  
Have the scouts reported yet? She asked him, no patience or consideration in her voice.  
  
No, Milady. We hope to hear from them soon. The passes are treacherous during the winter, and the com systems operate poorly in the snows. They are expected to return shortly though, barring no delays.  
  
Very well, then. She pushed by him, impatient to part company. He was a good man, but a stubborn one, and while it was in many ways an endearing quality, it served to remind her of her old life. And that was not a topic she was in the mood to deal with today.   
  
  
Ollen70: Sorry, once again, that this is so short and that it took me so long. Haven't been all that motivated lately, but things should get better as soon as my mid-terms are over by the end of next week. Thanks for reading.


	8. The drawn veil

Ollen70: Things are finally getting underway again! Since I decided to take a creative writing class this term, I've found myself with less time to write what I actually wanted to write. But since it's the week before finals, my homework load is easing up and spring break will be here soon. If I'm incredibly lucky, I'll be able to get two or three chapters up before spring term starts again. As always, thanks to Wink57CS, MAcky, and Rai Dorian for their comments. You guys are the best.   
  
Currently, I'm looking for someone who might be willing to read over some short original stories and give me their opinion on them. I have some pieces I've done for class, but I'd really like someone else's point of view on them before I turn em in. If you're interested at all, please let me know.   
  
Anyway, enough of me. On with the story.  
  
Disclaimer: It is my fate to not own the Visions of Escaflowne. And my home-made destiny screen doesn't seem to be working. Hmm... so much for modern technology...  
  
Chapter Eight - - The drawn veil  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
What! A speaker is but a prater, a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow:   
  
But a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.   
- - William Shakespeare  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
The Desrian fort was intact when they arrived, but little else could be said for it. The horse barely stood, so exhausted from the plunge through snow and underbrush that had brought them here that it could only lean against the trunk of a hemlock, its white breath wheezing out of its nostrils.   
  
Merle could easily sympathize with it. Only the stench of smoke kept her upright, its burning fume polluting her nose and mouth wickedly. Unlike the pure, sweet plume made by burning wood, this was the acrid smell of trash set ablaze. It rose from the ruins of the fort in a fettered column because of the increasing intensity of the wind, sweeping down over Merle in search of vengeance.  
  
Well, this was a grand waste of time. Allen stalked across the frozen ground. There isn't anybody left here. Not even any bodies. I don't know what happened, other than the obvious, but we aren't going to find out by standing here.  
  
But...but the visions were so clear! Merle turned toward him, away from the burning ruin. Why would anyone come up here just to set some old fort on fire? If no-one was here anyway, why go to all the trouble?  
  
I don't know if that was the case. There isn't anyone here *now*, but that's all we know. He drew closer, brushing back his hair. What bothers me is this: we're not very far away from the capital of Desria. If this fort fell so easily...  
  
Then Desria's already destroyed. We were too late. Staring at her hands, Merle felt clarity fill her slowly. We have to head for Asturia. There isn't any other choice right now. Maybe we can convince Dryden to send out spies, or to contact the other border countries, or...  
  
You're assuming, of course, that we get close enough to talk to him at all.   
  
Well, we have to try. She snapped back. Since when did you get so fatalistic about everything? Had she been feeling tolerant, she realized that she never would have said that. If she'd been through any of his ordeals, she probably wouldn't be very different. But she wasn't feeling particularly tolerant just then.   
  
Let's just... go. he said, not looking at her. Brushing aside the biting pang of guilt, she strode past him and untied the horse, who wickered unhappily. The guymelef pilots, who still sifted absently through the shattered ruins, came to their side when they were both saddled.   
  
You'll come with us. She said to the young man closest to her. We'll take the horse back to one of the houses on the main road, and then you'll carry us to Asturia as fast as you can. You, here she pointed to the other soldier, get back to Fanelia. Tell the forces to prepare themselves and tell the captains to double the patrols on all of our borders. Tell them what you've seen here... I want our nation ready for anything. Ignoring Allen's snicker, she spurred the horse forward at once. Something was very wrong with all of this, and a tingling feeling in her spine told her that the worst had not yet come.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Are the new recruits ready?   
  
Not yet, milady. Some of the Desrians have shown a peculiar... resilience... to our methods of persuasion.   
  
Then kill them. Hitomi replied softly. Or incarcerate them. Whatever you deem safest. We cannot afford to be discovered. If we lose the element of surprise, our armies will suffer.  
  
Indeed. I understand, Highness. Here the general bowed deeply, to which she returned a customary, curt nod.   
  
I've noticed the guymelef production rate is starting to fall off.   
  
In the dimness of the metallic hall, a short woman, resplendent in robes of deep purple and cunningly woven silver and carrying a great many scrolls and parchments, came forward at once.   
  
The availability of ore has gone down, Majesty. The woman spoke smoothly, with an appropriate grace that was one of the reasons Hitomi had appointed her to the position of Minister in the first place. Our out-lying forces are seeking newer mines, but in the meantime, I suggest we begin melting down or modifying the old guymelefs of our enemies. Production will still remain low, but the alternative is to do nothing until new mines can be established.   
  
We will wait, then. Hitomi murmered. When we can be certain our force cannot be matched, we will move again. I will risk no more loss in this campaign. We will not lose, when it is our destiny to reshape this world.  
  
No, Madam, all of those present replied. Overlooking this, she turned to the general.   
  
What of the objective? Has it been accomplished yet?  
  
Nearly, Majesty. The soldiers sent have run across several travelers in the passes, but were able to draw them away and continue on toward their goal. They will have the girl here by the setting of the day.  
  
Hitomi was genuinely pleased. I do not know if she can be persuaded, but she can't take the field against us if she is kept in our custody. I'll leave the matter in your hands, my general. I trust you will not fail me.  
  
No, Majesty. Our spies are in place, and it seems our movements into the south were not observed at all. The aforementioned travelers were distracted by the attack on the fort near the pass, but nothing will come of it. Our soldiers left no evidence. The general said it with great pride, but Hitomi felt her brow furrow.  
  
They came across the ruins?  
  
Yes, Majesty, but I doubt that...  
  
Nevermind that. She waved grandly. It doesn't matter if you consider them a threat or not. I want them watched. None will interfere with our plans, general. I'll hold you to your promise.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Eries sat up at once in the bed, rising without hesitation. Van wasn't beside her, but she knew where to find him. Wrapping the sheet around her against the chill, she set out for the eastern corridor of the fortress, her steps light and fast on the cold stones of the floor. Van sat alone in front of her, perched on the ledge of a large, many-paned window.   
  
What is it about the outside that fascinates you so much? She asked, slipping her arms around his waist. Like always, he jerked slightly at her touch. What is it about the world, my love, that calls to you so? Are you so anxious to go to it? Do you worry that the morning will leave you behind?  
  
By now he was folded within her arms, her golden hair spilling down around them. It was comforting for her, to be able to so firmly grasp him, her physical closeness closing the gaps that lingered between them in other ways.   
  
What are your thoughts, my love? she whispered it softly, plaintively in his ear, running the tips of her fingers along his forearms firmly while one hand sought a stray piece of his hair . It was longer now, parting itself naturally, its youthful wildness now tamed by its own great weight. He was royal and noble now, on the outside, carrying all the dignity of a lord in his appearance, but she could still feel his suffering. It made her love him all the more.   
  
There are moments when I wonder. He said simply, his eyes still fixed on the glass in front of them. At first she thought that he'd said all that he would, but the specter of him in the window pane still held his jaw loosely. I wonder... I wonder... if this is... right.  
  
Eries wasn't sure how to reply. She certainly understood what he meant. He was very young - far younger than she, a child still in many rights. Deep within her, she loved him with matronly affection and was appalled at the thought of it being something more. But on these days, when the painfully tragic affliction of the experiences he'd faced fell upon him, she felt she was in the presence of someone much older and wiser than she. In his doubt, in his confusion, he was glorious.   
  
But these things come and go. She replied confidently. Doubt passes, in time. Uncertainty gives way to clarity. Kissing his cheek gently, she rose and left him with his reflection. He would be better in time.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Van watched her go without turning away. As she receded in the frigid pane, he focused once again on the morning glow, hoping once again that he might feel alive today. He'd long since ceased attempting to make sense of himself, since it led him nowhere. Instead, all he could do was to look out and pray that someday he might be let back into the world.  
  
Eries was a dear person to his heart, but there was little in her touch and her words that he could not question from time to time. What troubled him more was her utter lack of curiosity in the matters of the heart. She had shown him no interest during the war against Zaibach, yet she now pledged her love to him as she had never done for another man. Why, then, had this change taken place?  
  
He did not always doubt her. Many days, he was content to sink happily into her assuredness and let it wash all around him. The confidence she spared him was enough to take away everything that wasn't Asturia or golden hair or the crowded city stretching out unto the sea.   
  
What will become of us, when we all fall away? The whisper left his lips like a gentle song. A requiem for what he used to be. No longer did he feel like a warrior, but he couldn't say when he had changed. Many of his memories were more fractured than they should have been. The war and the defeat of Zaibach were clear. After that, everything descended to fog. Eries was real inside his mind, but it felt like she was only a part of something else.   
  
Despair came, as it always did, when he realized that, even if he were missing some integral part of himself, he had no idea what might be done to find it again. As far as anyone was concerned, those traits were gone and there was no recovering them.   
  
Far away, through the panes of the oriel in front of him, the light of the morning woke the sleeping specters in the royal cemetery. Crystalline hemlocks and birches swayed their ice-laden branches over regal markers of the dearly departed while diamonds encrusted the epitaphs of the stones like the hands of God had traced them with delicate tenderness. He felt so very alone.   
  
Ollen70: Thanks again to all of my readers. Insights are greatly appreciated. Most of chapter nine is already done, so I don't imagine it'll take me too long to get it posted.   
  



	9. Reappearances

Ollen70: This was supposed to be longer and a little clearer, but if you don't think things are sufficiently explained here, they will be by the next chapter. As always, thanks again to everybody for your excellent reviews!   
  
To Macky: I hope this answers your question somewhat. I don't think this is quite what you were expecting, but I hope you like it anyway. It'll definitely be a different interpretation, at any rate.   
  
Disclaimer: If I didn't own Escaflowne eight chapters ago, I don't own it now.  
  
  
Chapter Nine - - Reappearances  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
The guymelef carried them without incident into the bordering forests of Palas. Allen refused to even consider facing the gates to the city, and Merle didn't blame him. But, preferences aside, they needed a way in. If diplomacy wouldn't carry them through, they needed another way.   
  
The forests, according to Allen, were easier to slip through because they were rarely patrolled. There was a short, outer wall bordering the forest and the houses of the nobles, but it was nothing they couldn't overcome. Most of the tower outposts weren't located in that area, and he was confident they could slip into the Schezar manor without incident.  
  
How did I let you talk me into this? Merle complained quietly, hanging from her fingertips on the wall ledge. This is ridiculous! I could have walked right through the gates if I'd wanted! All I'd have to do was tell them I was there to see Van!  
  
As strange as things are lately, so you really think they'd let you in? He shot back briskly. Besides, without me, who would vouch for you? No one else would believe you without someone to confirm something.  
  
Merle didn't bother to remind him that he was regarded as a felon by the local authorities now, and his word was probably worse than nothing at all. Instead, she pulled herself up awkwardly and slinked along behind him, hoping beyond hope that they didn't get caught. She'd have an even better time explaining everything to Van from the wrong side of a prison cell.  
  
Once we get to the manor and change clothes, we'll have a better chance of getting past the guards. All we need to do is get to inside. You'll do the rest, if you can find Van. He set off quickly, keeping low like she did.   
  
What about Dryden? She asked. He might be able to help.  
  
To this, Allen only snorted. She kept expecting him to add something, but it never came. All at once the ramparts gave way to a steep, stone stair, and he almost pulled her down them as he went. She bit her tongue and stumbled blindly in his wake, relieved to no end when he slowed in the shadows of a high-peaked building of old and proud bearing.   
  
Darting through the door, Allen halted immediately when he was inside. It was so abrupt that Merle ran into him, rubbing her cheek-bone where it had connected with his shoulder.   
  
Ow! Hey, watch what you're... She fell silent when she noticed why he'd stopped. The furnishings were overturned, the high curtains and adornments strewn carelessly over the wooden floors like fallen leaves in a windstorm. What on Earth?  
  
Allen didn't make any reply. He sprinted for the stairs, his leather boots clomping as he cleared them three at a time. Serena? Serena!!  
  
More nimble than him, she scampered up the banister of the oaken stairway and tested the air, breathing in deeply. Harsh, acrid scents hung here and there, bearing, among other things, the deep smell of sulfur and crude oil - the same way every guymelef pilot smelled after they'd been in their armor.   
  
At the top of the stair, the narrow hallway was illuminated by one open doorway. Through this she went, not checking her speed until she was all the way in. Though she'd unvelveted her claws, it was obvious that the room was very empty. The bureaus and wardrobe watched her modestly from their respective corners while she circled a high, canopy bed. Its covered were rumpled, and a torn scrap of white fabric that was instantly recognizable as the laced fringe of a gown lay mournfully across them.  
  
A mere second later, Allen burst into the room behind her. The sword was naked in his clenched fist, nearly shaking as he raised it.   
  
She's... gone... It was a whispered gasp on his still-cracked lips, his eyes at once very wild and afraid. Without meaning to, Merle at once felt very sorry for him.   
  
Then... then, it makes sense after all... She said quietly, fearing the effect her words would carry. You were cast out of Palas on purpose. There've been men here, I can smell them. I think the soldiers we saw in the pass... came to take Serena.  
  
But... what would they want from her? She's just a child! Allen slammed his fist down on the unprotesting bureau in his frustration, long wisps of golden hair breaking free as when he did.   
  
Allen, she used to be Dilandau.  
  
No. They couldn't turn her back into that monster. I've spent long enough trying to help her recover from their tortures. She wouldn't survive it a second time. At this he gave up and sank down on his arms. I should have been here. If we hadn't turned aside...  
  
We'd both be dead by now. Merle finished for him, the heat in her voice enough to force him to raise his head. The invisible Guymelefs we came across in the pass must have been headed here. For some reason I can tell where they are, and that's frankly very strange to me, but neither one of us has a guymelef, in case you haven't noticed. We would have been doomed. They'd have killed us and taken her anyway. At least this way, there's still hope that we can get her back.   
  
You just said it yourself, Merle. Neither one of us has a Guymelef. How can we fight our way through an army of God-knows-who and God-knows-how-many?  
  
Merle stopped for a moment. That's... not entirely true...  
  
Allen said at once, the warning tone telling her to come to the point quickly. She sniffed disdainfully, casting him a knowing glare before going on.  
  
Lord Van thought I should know how to use one. I'm his confidante, after all. My family has been the body guard of the Fanels for as long as anyone can remember. *I* have a guymelef, and I command the troops of Fanelia in Van's stead.  
  
It's a nice sentiment, Merle, but who's going to follow you into battle? The half-smirk that Allen was so good at crossed his lips again, and Merle had to stifle the urge to slap him.   
  
Well, we have to get out of here first of all. If Asturia had something to do with all of this...  
  
Allen bit out in a low growl. It must have been.  
  
Though she wasn't sure if she really believed it, Merle didn't argue. It seemed very convenient for Allen's exile and the abduction of his sister to fall so close together. Dryden had long been Allen's rival, and it wouldn't surprise her greatly to learn that Dryden indeed had some part in getting Allen arrested. He seemed an honorable man, but it was no secret that he harbored jealousy for the golden knight. Millerna was in love with Allen, as plain as the day. What better way to reinforce their union than to rid his kingdom of the man while his wife was away in Fanelia?  
  
But, then, that didn't seem quite right either. Naturally, Millerna wouldn't be flattered by an action of that nature. It would disgust her to learn what Dryden had done , and Dryden was intelligent enough to know that. Perhaps he was coerced into driving out the knight and turning over his sister by a stronger nation, but she doubted it. With Zaibach gone, Asturia was one of the mightiest kingdoms in Gaea. It seemed more likely to her that he had no idea what had happened. If the strange occurrences everywhere else were any indication, there was a great deal wrong with the world at the moment, and she still felt completely trapped, unaware of what to say or where to go.   
  
I want to face him. Allen said flatly. Merle jerked her head up, watching him intensely, knowing exactly of whom he spoke.  
  
Absolutely not. We don't have any proof of that, and it isn't something Dryden would do. There's something else going on here. You're going back to the guard and he'll stay with you until I'm done here. After that, all of us are going back to Fanelia. That's final.  
  
Who do you think you are, Merle? Allen was in her face at once. This isn't any of your business! Do you think you can command me? My sister is all I have left!  
  
Listen to me, Allen. We're doing this my way, or not at all!   
  
He reached to grab the front of her tunic and the silver chain around her neck caught suddenly, drawing it through the fur and across her skin roughly. Before she could cry out, though, he'd let her go. He stood there, staring at his hand, an expression of utter shock pasted on his face.  
  
I believe you. His voice was a dry murmur. I don't know why. I didn't just a second ago...  
  
Merle didn't know how to respond to that. What did you see? She tried instead.  
  
A metal room. Serena. A candle... He gave her a wild look. What's happening here, Merle? What's wrong with everything?  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
And she is here?   
  
Yes, Majesty.  
  
Following the servant closely, Hitomi entered the chamber with some caution, not wanting to make any loud noises. She looked down at the girl, who lay unconscious on a low, metallic platform. Her discarded gown was in a heap on the floor, obsolete in comparison to the black and silver armor she now wore. Her hair - a strange, silver-gray - fell almost to her waist as an after-effect of the manipulations that had already been performed on her.   
  
What was changed? She asked calmly, marveling at the girl's innocent beauty.   
  
Her old personality is gone. We couldn't recover it.  
  
That's for the best. Hitomi replied quickly. There are some things that shouldn't be recovered. We would have suffered if we'd re-awakened it. She can be of use to us in other ways.  
  
The attendant inclined her head in agreement, sending brown strands dancing over her brow. All of her old skills were recovered, and she has no idea why she knows what she knows. I was forced to put her to sleep, to save her some of the shock.  
  
That was a wise choice. When can she be awakened? Hitomi leaned over the girl, looking down directly at the figure.   
  
I don't know. She'll awaken in her own time. I think it's best to leave her for now, let her recover as much as she can.  
  
Nodding at this, Hitomi turned and strode away. Leaving the infirmary wards and this new girl behind her, she stopped for a moment to give instructions to the guards. The girl was to be kept absolutely safe, under constant supervision. She was to want for nothing.   
  
The general approached when he saw her, bowing at once.   
  
We've completed the guymelef as you commanded, Majesty. You can see it, if you wish. I've had it brought into the courtyard.  
  
There's no need, general. I trust that you've had it constructed correctly. Nothing else would be appropriate for our new captain, once she awakens. Hitomi glanced back at the infirmary. Every day, we get closer. All of the elements are coming together, the gravity is growing...  
  
Yes, Majesty. The general bowed again blandly, the guards nearby doing the same. She cast them a pitying glance, then strode away. There was no sense saying anything more, when it would accomplish nothing. They couldn't understand her, really. No one could. All they could do was agree and follow, either of their own volition, or not. It didn't matter.   
  
Nothing could stop the Asgard Empire, the great Phoenix born entirely from the strewn ashes of Zaibach, a bird of plumage so much more magnificent that that of what came before. There were few in Asgard who even remembered Dornkirk now, and that made her feel odd. Perhaps he hadn't deserved to be forgotten.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Van stood alone in an doorway, only his outline visible against the light.   
  
So there you are, my boy. Dryden intentionally said it louder than necessary, giving Van plenty of warning to his presence. He hadn't wanted to startle the younger man. Van spent so much time locked in thought anymore, though, that it was difficult not to. Dryden sometimes wished that he knew what troubled him, but it wasn't really his business.   
  
My sister-in-law is wondering where you are. She sent me to find you. it wasn't actually the truth, but it was believable enough that Van nodded, apparently finding no fault with the statement. In actuality, Dryden had gone this way fully expecting to come across the young king. The two of them were not close, and as far as he knew, Van had always been somewhat distant, but as of late, he was so withdrawn that Dryden sometimes had a hard time remembering what Van's voice sounded like. It was no wonder that Eries was worried about him.   
  
For the seventh time that day, Dryden wished that Millerna were home again. It had been too long since he'd seen his bride, and she was much better at this sort of thing than he. There wasn't much he could do but accept it. In a matter of weeks, Eries and Van would be married and the queen of Asturia could return, having fulfilled her agreement to stay in Van's place as Fanelia's caretaker until the day of the wedding.   
  
Tell her I'll be along shortly, please. Van's voice was so quiet, so removed from anything that reminded Dryden of him. Closing the leather-bound book he carried, he put a friendly arm around Van's shoulder, guiding him away from the door.   
  
We'll go together.   
  
Van didn't protest, but Dryden noticed that, as they drew away, the raven-haired man's eyes still drifted back to the door.   
  
  
  
Ollen70: Thanks for reading. Spring break is in two weeks, so I should hopefully have a lot more time for writing fairly soon. 


	10. What will become of us?

Disclaimer: I don't own the visions of Escaflowne. I mean no disrespect to its creators by writing this.  
  
  
Chapter Ten - - What will become of us?  
  
  
Merle hung her head, slipping without complaint between the soft sheets of her bed. Normally she wasn't one to sleep in that manner, preferring instead to pull free all of the covers and make herself comfortable in the midst, forming a sort of nest around herself, but tonight she was so tired that it barely mattered.   
  
For some reason, she thought it would be more satisfying to be back in Fanelia - maybe that being behind the walls alone would be enough to change all of the strangeness in the world, but it wasn't, and while she knew that it was naive to have assumed that things would change, she was still disappointed.   
  
As far as this day was concerned, there was nothing else that she could do. Allen was put up somewhere, given adequate quarters in a more distant part of the castle. Merle had been careful to keep him away from Millerna, all but smuggling him in. Aside from the two pilots who had escorted them and now kept watch over his chambers, no one else even knew that he was here, and that was the way she would prefer to keep it.   
  
Without attracting attention, she'd commissioned a new guymelef to be constructed to slightly different specifications than those that were more commonly produced. No one questioned her about it, which was good. She wasn't sure what she would have said if they had. She hadn't even told Allen about it yet, but that would come soon enough, after he'd had time to come to terms with everything he'd discovered. It was important to her that he regain his self-confidence, that he return to the role of adamant champion that she remembered so clearly - even despised at first.   
  
She tried not to remind herself that Allen had ultimately caused more problems than he'd solved. His tirade against Dryden and Asturia had made her very reluctant to leave him alone while she went to find Van. If he managed to get away from the guards, all hell would most definitely break loose.   
  
In the end, she'd abandoned her mission and resigned herself to taking Allen back to Fanelia. To account for her failure to contact Van, she'd sent three more messages to Asturia, but she expected no more to come of them than those that she'd sent earlier.   
  
Millerna didn't understand any of it, which truthfully surprised no one. The blond princess had come more than once to her quarters already to tell her that it made no sense to chase speculation, shadows she may or may not have seen in the pass, the ruins of an old fortress that might have nothing to do with anything. They were all ideas Merle really longed to believe, but for some reason she just couldn't. There was something wrong, and she still didn't know what. Her dreams were clearer than the realities of the days, spent now in the dark veins of the castle, trying to find some purpose in herself on top of the responsibilities that Van had apparently forgotten.   
  
Van. Merle missed him. Thinking of him now brought a tear to her eye, but she batted it away and cursed herself for being stupid. Van, for all intents and purposes, was dead. He could be of no help to her or the people of Fanelia, and though she still had no proof of anything, she was convinced that they faced something dark, as black as anything that had come before.   
  
Pulling back the covers, she scowled at the world. There was no point in her trying to sleep, because there was no chance of it happening. Why couldn't things go back to the way they were? Van should be here, by her side, leading his people like the king he was supposed to be. Everyone should come back, be the way that they used to. Everyone... Van, Allen, Millerna, Dryden, Eries... Hitomi...   
  
In a sudden burst of rage, she struck savagely at the nearby curtains with her claws. The fabric tore to pieces. Why was life so unfair? She never wanted this responsibility. It wasn't hers; it felt wrong to wield decision like it belonged to her, when it was nothing but a borrowed disguise. She wasn't supposed to be in charge anymore than Allen, one of the greatest knights in Gaea, was supposed to be living like a vagrant.   
  
Turning furiously from one side of the darkened room to another, the soft clink at her neck brought her attention, and she clapped her hand to it at once, meaning to put it down inside of her tunic so that it wouldn't bother her. The movement was captured in the window-pane, and she watched herself as her fingers touched the faintly green stone. Maybe it was the star-light that somehow augmented the room or just her imagination, but something seemed... different.   
  
The earlier memories of the others had stirred something. Hitomi...? Why did that name come to her mind so fast, before anything else? Hitomi was gone, wasn't she? Merle twirled the stone, watching as her reflection did the same. All at once her mouth fell open in shock. She'd been such an idiot.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *   
  
Van stood alone in the courtyard of the palace, not far from the front gate. Snow fell lightly, though there were bare patches in the sky that let in the pale light of the moon. He looked up at these without seeing them, wrapping his fingers around a large, elaborate scroll.   
  
Merle had called for him again, mentioning that she'd even traveled most of the way to Asturia to speak with him before circumstances forced her to turn back. This was not the first summons he'd received, but it troubled him more than the others. Initially, they'd all held a certain degree of desperation, a plea for help that was pathetic without trying to be. This one contained none of that. It was an apathetic letter, summoning him in spite of the fact the Merle already knew he wouldn't respond to it. She'd given up on him.  
  
The snow picked up, falling with much more determination than it had before, swirling around him thickly and obstructing his view of anything else. The gate of the castle disappeared in the gale. He pulled down the bandana he wore so that it would protect his eyes from the icy blasts that assaulted them.   
  
There was nothing he could do anymore, and it was high time that he acknowledged it. Escaflowne was sequestered away in some Asturian hangar, forgotten to the rest of the world. He no longer thought himself worthy to wield it, so he'd let it stay there. Eries didn't encourage him to go far anyway, nor did Dryden or any of the others in the palace. They all coddled him, forgetting who he was. But then, that was a forgivable offense. After all, it wasn't as if he knew himself anymore anyway.   
  
So much of him was missing, and it seemed that each day only served to remind him of that fact rather than help him come to terms with it. He had no desire to move on or accept that something dear to him was gone, as he once had.   
He felt compelled to cry, as he stood there, but since it wasn't something he thought he could do, he settled for looking out into the snow again, wishing he could see the way out.   
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Serena sat in her little room blindly. Her layered black armor clattered as she shifted, making herself more comfortable on her wooden chair. The darkness, which she'd grown to accept, was judgmental and absolute. Though a single lamp fettered her gaze from the table at her bedside, it did nothing for the surroundings, or the perpetual gray feeling that tainted this place.   
  
Lifting a beautifully wrought ivory comb from the table, she ran it experimentally through her long silver hair, wincing when it caught on various tangles. Allen always used to do this for her, and she still wasn't accustomed to ferreting out the small catches and knots on her own.   
  
Allen. That was her only tie to reality, and it was quickly fading. The memory of his proud face and golden demeanor were reticent against this new world she'd found herself in. He was losing ground far too quickly, because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't be unhappy here.   
  
It was lonely, of course, but she felt like she'd been deserted by her own emotions and now could only feel a select few. And, what made matters more complicated, was that there was no reason for her to dislike her new home. She was a captain in an already large and growing empire, responsible for more men than any woman had ever been before. She reported only to the empress, and not even the general had any sway over her.   
  
Looking around, the curtains, tapestries, books, and other elaborate oddments around her sang with the same vain self-content, opulent and rude in their elegance. That was how the empire ought to be, rather than hiding in the shadows at the outskirts of Gaea, plotting like a spider when it could be roaring onto the field like the dragon that it was.   
  
Scoffing at her reflection in the nearby window, she lifted her black velvet and silver cloak and girded her blade on at her belt. In a matter of days, Asgard would rise out of obscurity. Preparations were already being made for an attack on the nation of Freid that she herself would lead. It was a task she was anxious for, even though she'd been a part of the empire for less than seven days. The empress had her loyalty without even the thought of question. She would do her bidding to the end, uniting the world under the banners of Asgard, forever ending the enslaving cruelty of war for all people.   
  
Allen would be a part of her again. Once Asturia was taken, she would fight beside her brother. They would not be beaten, Serena and Allen Schezar, the legendary champions of a new order. She could only barely curb her anxiety as she made her way to the metal portal of her chamber. There was no denying fate.   
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
The weight of the day wore heavily on Hitomi, as all days did anymore. She felt herself slipping in and out of consciousness on her throne, surrounded by curtains and veils, her crowns feeling like an impossible burden above her.   
  
So this is the selflessness you pursued, is it?   
  
The heaviness of the voice brought Hitomi's head up at once. She shifted her head from right to left quickly, searching for its source.   
  
But you did not expect, could not understand, the many intricacies in what you were hoping to attempt. An old man stood at her side. He wore robes that may have been black or a very deep purple, tied off with a brilliantly red sash embroidered in gold. A single gold circlet encased a brow that was furrowed with age rather than by expression.   
  
You aren't real, she told Dornkirk's shadow. You don't exist.  
  
With a quiet chuckle that didn't reach his face, the emperor reached out a careworn hand, stopping it just shy of her face. She recoiled.  
  
I am as real as you, my dear. Or perhaps it would be better for me to say that you are no more real than I. It seems that we were not as different as you liked to imagine.  
  
We are different, Hitomi murmured quietly, horrified in spite of herself. You let yourself be destroyed when you let the power of Atlantis slip away. You were too scared to use it the way we both knew it had to be used.  
  
And so it becomes ever more apparent that only one type of person can wield the power of fate. Whether he be meek or righteous in the beginning, meddling erases all such qualities in time. You spurned me for my wars, and yet you declare your own with even less justification.  
  
I will end war, even if I must use war to do it. But unlike you, I use it with caution. I don't kill for the joy of it.  
  
You commit a much more heinous act without realizing it. His reply was stern, but not unkind. You deprive the world of its right to be unhappy. What is it you're enforcing on these people but a bland facade that holds only a tincture of that which they may some day possess? Will you be their savior by trapping them? By holding them in thrall to you?  
  
Hitomi drew herself up, glaring at the specter of Dornkirk.   
  
There is no other way for peace.  
  
Then, my dear, you must ask yourself... which is the greater evil?  
  
He'd taken her by surprise.   
  
If you hold a mind to you for a day, you must hold it to you for a lifetime. You've forced them to live lives that they did not choose. Did you think that you could ever set them free? People are not your puppets. If you let go of the strings, they will rise up and destroy you. He said it without cruelty, his eyes fixed on her face. She found that she couldn't return his inquiring glance.  
  
My dear, he whispered, my dear child, did you not see? To free the world from hardship, you must carry it all on your own shoulders. You suffer more every day so that they will not, but how can you bring them joy if you don't remember what it is?  
  
I've come too far for you to mean anything to me, old man, she told him tersely. It didn't matter what he said, even if all of it was true. She'd made her decision a long time ago and could not turn away.   
  
There is always a choice. He turned away from her, drawing off to one side. Your time, my dear, will not come. I have warned you.  
  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
  
  
The woman on the throne before her sat up at once, glancing around frantically before blinking down at her. Serena looked down at the floor, holding her bow.   
  
Y... yes. Captain. I'm glad that you've come. The empress looked paler than she should.  
  
All is prepared, Majesty.  
  
Good. I trust you're ready to get underway?  
  
Of course, Majesty.  
  
With that Serena was dismissed, and she left without complaint. The empress was as composed as always, but there was something wrong. Under her veils and armoring layers of fabric, her body shook, her voice trembled. And for some reason, Serena felt fear brewing in her own own heart, as deep and as real as anything she'd ever felt before.   
  
  
  
  
Ollen70: There should be a conclusion within a matter of chapters. This was done to sort of tie everything together. Sorry that there isn't much action, but I hope it helped make some things clear. Suggestions are always appreciated. Thanks to Macky for reviewing the last chapter.


	11. The pendant

Ollen70: I'm really, REALLY sorry it's been so long since I've updated this. I've had some exciting health problems that landed me in the hospital for awhile, and it's kinda hard to write coherent chapters when you're on way too much oxycodone, so I didn't get too much work done. I haven't even been able to practice piano lately, and that makes me sadder than I might have expected. Thankfully, things are better now. I hope to have this story done within a week or two.   
  
Macky: Thanks again for all your comments. I really appreciate the fact that you've reviewed every chapter. You're one of the reasons I was motivated to start writing this again.   
  
Airidorna: Good to hear from you again! I kind of considered taking this story in that direction for awhile, but I don't think I've got the kind of talent to pull it off tastefully. I wish I lived in Maine too. I actually haven't met another person in Oregon who's heard of Escaflowne AT ALL, which is both surprising and slightly upsetting to me. Anyway, thanks again for taking time to review for me.   
  
Disclaimer: The Vision of Escaflowne belongs to someone invariably richer than I am. But maybe that's for the best.   
  
Chapter Eleven - - The pendant   
  
xxxxxxxxxxxx  
  
Make me a witness. Take me out,  
out of darkness, out of doubt.  
I won't weigh you down with good intention,  
won't make fire out of clay, or other inventions.  
  
Sarah McLachlan - - Witness  
  
xxxxxxxxxxxx  
  
"We've discovered the core of the disturbances in fate, milady.  
  
"Finally. I grow tired of waiting.  
  
"We've located what it was you seek.  
  
Hitomi sat back in her throne, glaring hotly at the General.   
  
"After all of your delays, I expect you will not be mistaken again. Dispatch as many of the forces as you deem necessary. If you do not retrieve it within two days, I and the Captain will take the field ourselves." Watching the man cower, Hitomi sneered lightly. "I tire of your incompetence, General. This has drawn on long enough.  
  
"Agreed, Majesty. It will be as you say.  
  
Watching the general walk away quickly, Hitomi scowled to herself. Each day that passed reminded her more and more how wrong everything felt - how close the apparition of Dornkirk had come with his words.  
  
"Ah, so you begin to believe me, now?  
  
Hitomi didn't even look up at the robed figure beside her.  
  
"Get out of my thoughts, old man. I banished you.  
  
Dornkirk knelt down beside her, watching her curiously. He toyed with a wisp of his beard for a long moment, apparently pondering some fascinating aspect of her, and she felt her irritation grow.  
  
"You did indeed banish me, intending to take the power of fate for yourself, as you have done. But, as I told you then, fate is not a tool. Rather, you are its tool. Your refusal to let go of me is what called me to you, dear one. As long as you cling to this..." He waved a gloved hand at the dark hall, "...malefic dream of yours, you and I will be bound.  
  
"No." Calling on the latent power in and around her, Hitomi focused on her task. It was more difficult without the pendant to guide her, but when she glanced up again, Dornkirk was gone. Sinking back into the throne, she let a deep sigh pass her lips.  
  
"Don't you understand, child?" Dornkirk stood beside her again, this time to her left. "There are some aspects of fate that cannot be changed.  
  
"We shall see." A light sheen of cold sweat now beaded on her forehead.  
  
"YOU shall see, rather." The phantom of the emperor took a seat on the edge of the dais, laying his polished cane by his side. "Your interference, like mine, will not and cannot be taken lightly. You've already made sacrifices because of your meddling, but you've not yet begun to pay the price fate will demand of you." He turned to watch her. "Heed my warning, child. Relinquish this foolish dream and live your life while you can. Do not force the world to suffer this power any longer."   
  
"Again you ask for what I will not give. I have no intention of recanting my power until I can ensure peace. Once my pendant is found, I will seal fate over Gaea and grant peaceful lives to all of her people." Hitomi recited the line easily and fluidly.   
  
"Again you tell yourself these lies, perhaps without even knowing that what you say rings so false." The old emperor turned to watch Hitomi. "It will not be so easy to lay aside your power at the end of all things. You will find yourself clinging to it, unable to let go. The only way to overcome it is to destroy it. If you don't, eventually it will consume you, even more than it already has.  
  
"Why do you plague me?!" She cried, fingertips searching under her headdress for her temples. "You have no business here! You're dead!  
  
"As if that mattered." Dornkirk gazed at her with scholarly tenor. Her outburst, if it touched him at all, left no evident impact save for a slightly sad upward curving to his lips. "I am the very least of your problems, my dear. Someone with your intellect, the wisdom necessary to wield the power of fate at all, must have realized this already. Either you've blinded yourself to the parts of the truth that frighten you, or you somehow believe yourself to be strong enough to direct this universe alone.  
  
His eyes were not cruel, but the filled her with a weight greater than she might have imagined he was capable of. A cry rang out from within her, as if the melody of the world around her - once languid, though perhaps heavy with minor tones - now resounded with utter discord. There was no sanctuary from it; no solitude even within the confines of her mind. Somehow, infuriatingly, Dornkirk had found some way inside of her, and there was no ridding herself of him.   
  
"There is a way, child." He spoke to her thoughts, increasing her impotent fury to even greater heights. Ignoring this, he continued. "If you rid yourself of the power you now grasp, I will be tied to you no longer. And that, in many ways, is not something I would regret.  
  
"You don't care if you die?" Hitomi shot out. Dornkirk didn't flinch.   
  
"My dear, I died quite some time ago. I mean you no offense, but I have no interest in remaining in your mind when other eventualities await my soul. If I had my own way, we would not be bound. It was not in my power, but if I could have, I would have destroyed the Destiny Prognostication Device when it was clear that the zone of Absolute Fortune was but an ill-conceived dream.  
  
"But how can you claim that this is not fate in itself? That I was not meant to manipulate destiny?  
  
Dornkirk came closer, crouching right beside her now. Heaving a breath that did not touch her nor disturb a hair on her head, he looked directly into her eyes. "Because," he said at last, "I do not believe fate would be so cruel to you.  
  
xxxxxxxxxxxx  
  
Merle looked into the mirror in her chamber, fingering the light chain. Hitomi's pendant hung around her neck. Hitomi. First, the disappearance of Zaibach, then Van's mission that led him somehow to Asturia and his impossible engagement with Eries, then the rise of a new empire that no one knew anything about...   
  
True, there was no way she might have pieced the factors together initially, but now it all made a strange sort of sense. Somehow, Hitomi was behind or at least involved in what had taken place, but Merle couldn't say why for certain. There were still pieces to the puzzle that didn't make sense to her. Allen's particular fate, for one, as well as the abduction of Serena, but a sinking feeling inside of her told her that it might not be difficult to guess at, given Serena's past.   
  
The most important question now hung around her neck. The pendant was the at root of Hitmoi's power. It alone granted wishes - which consequently explained some other happenings rather neatly - but what made no sense was why she had it now. Either Hitomi sent it to her to keep it out of the hands of someone else, or... or what? She didn't know.  
  
If Hitomi wasn't the onebehind everything, then Van's sudden preoccupation didn't make much sense. Not that it made a great deal of sense anyway, but it was at least a believable possibility.   
  
Though the scouts had only recently reported motion from the regions near the pass and the lesser territories of Baslam, Merle knew it wouldn't be long before she had her answers. Hitomi or whoever was currently in power would be coming for her pendant, if she'd somehow managed to track it to Fanelia. Merle thought it very likely the case. The Destiny Machine, at the root of Zaibach, was powerful enough to influence anything, as was readily becoming evident.   
  
Scratching wistfully at the chain, Merle pulled off her familiar tan garment and let it fall in a rumpled heap on the floor. A simpler leather tunic took its place, matched with leggings of the same weathered black. Over these came chain mail, metal plates over her legs, a long velvet cloak of a deep purple, and a black leather belt. Thus arrayed, she made her way to the parade ground swiftly. Allen would be waiting for her.   
  
xxxxxxxxxxxx  
  
The Knight of Asturia stood calmly in the snowy courtyard, garbed in a fashion similar to her own and facing away from her. He wore heavier plate mail over his chest and arms, and the tasses of his armor were flanged a bit more dramatically than her own. His cloak was of a royal purple half a shade darker than her own, matching the coif he wore under a silver helm. How he'd actually managed to get all of his hair in the helmet, she wasn't sure, but she was glad he'd tried. Allen's tresses were far too well-known. It did the trick very nicely - if she hadn't known where to look for him, she wouldn't have known who he was.   
  
"Here at last, I see." When he turned, she noticed how he'd managed the helmet. Two very elegant braids protruded from the left side of the helm and coif, falling almost to his waist like ribbons of spun gold.  
  
"Impressive," she said, taking a moment to let her eyes wander his striking form. Compared to the rags and even the simple garments she'd bought him during their journey to Asturia, he looked like a king. So much like a king, in fact, that he almost resembled Goau, though the grand angles of his face held no hint of a beard. Merle felt a sudden pang at the thought.   
  
"I could say the same for you, Merle." He stretched his arms as best he could in the armor, fingering the hilt of the sword at his side. Rather than the ordinary katana, he'd been outfitted with a two-handed falchion, nearly as long as Merle was tall. Merle herself carried a short katana, though it was more for show than anything. While she was passably proficient at the helm of a guymelef - due entirely to the little instruction she recieved from Van before his departure - she was hopeless in hand-to-hand combat. If it was necessary, she could always use her claws, but blades unnerved her.   
  
"Does Millerna approve of all of this?" Allen asked quietly, gesturing around him with one hand. Merle didn't have to ask what he meant.  
  
"You already know the answer to that. But, for the moment, she doesn't have much of a choice. She thinks I have more proof than I do, about what took place in the pass. I sort of... embellished... the story." Merle felt sheepish, but didn't let it show. Both she and Allen knew she'd made the right decision. After all, Millerna didn't have much say in the matter anyway. All she could do if she thought Merle's actions were wildly out of line was to send for the young king, which Merle really wouldn't have minded.   
  
"Have the soldiers shown you the new guymelef yet?" Merle asked, already knowing the answer.   
  
"No, but I thought you might be up to something like that. I haven't even been out of my room before you called for me. I thought you'd forgotten about me.  
  
"This ought to make it up to you. Come on. The hangars are this way.  
  
xxxxxxxxxxxx  
  
"Are you prepared?  
  
"Yes, majesty.  
  
"You'd best be certain of that. As of now, you are Third in command of the forces of Asgard, at the call of only the general and myself. These men are as much yours as anyone's, and I expect you to care for them as such.  
  
"I... appreciate the honor, my empress." Serena knelt and bowed her head, remaining in the position.   
  
"I expect you to remember it. My actions are not for nothing." The empress turned away for a moment, and Serena craned her neck to watch the other woman without appearing obvious. Rising and pacing the length of the dias, the empress muttered under her breath for a moment. Not certain if she were being spoken to, Serena stayed silent. This was happening more and more frequently - as if the empress were carrying on a conversation with someone else, forgetting Serena entirely.   
  
"You may go," she was told promptly, as always. "Make yourself ready immediately. Soon, we begin our task anew, and the final tasks will be accomplished.  
  
"Yes, majesty." Keeping her head down, Serena strode from the chamber without hesitation. Her strength would be tried in the coming days - she could feel it.  
  
Ollen70: Thanks for reading. As always, suggestions and comments are appreciated. 


	12. The clearest choice

  
  
Ollen70: For some odd reason, they've decided we don't get to use asterisks anymore. Are we not grown up enough for asterisks? Are they a safety hazard? Have people been choking on the asterisks? Maybe they were too pointy-looking or something? Hmm. Anyway, practice safe reading and be wary around the x's, okay? (And in case you're wondering, it's finals week here and I lost my mind quite some time ago. So now you know.)  
  
In story notes, the Latin in this chapter may not be totally correct. It's been awhile since I took that class, so the translations may or may not be word for word. Also, this is taking a bit longer to develop than I anticipated. I'm thinking it should max out at 14 chapters, rather than 12 as I'd hoped.   
  
As always, thanks yet again to Rai Dorian, Macky, Lord Anime, and Atari for reviewing for me. You guys are my heroes. If not for you guys, I probably would have given up on finishing this quite some time ago.  
  
Disclaimer: For eleven chapters, I have not owned the premise of Escaflowne. That's an established trend, and it would be a shame to change it now.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Chapter Twelve - - The clearest choice  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Already old, the question Who shall die?  
Becomes unspoken Who is innocent?  
  
Karl Shapiro  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Allen stood perfectly still in the guymelef bay, barely daring to breathe while he looked up at what stood before him. The suit of armor was so far removed from what he'd been expecting that he didn't know what to say. He watched the metallic titan with horror and awe, half-expecting it to come to life on its own, as the Escaflowne had.   
  
Made of dark metal and covered with silver bright silver plates, it looked more like a work of art than any sort of weapon. Instead of a sword, it carried a long, black spear as its primary weapon. Its cloak was of a dark, glossy material that was not silk of any kind of fabric that he recognized.   
  
Fortified silk, Merle told him meekly when he asked. His jaw dropped. It cost almost as much as the rest of the armor.  
  
Reinforced silk was incredibly rare because it was so hard to make. Spun with the fibers of spiders in alongside that of silk-worms, it offered as much protection sewn into a jacket or tabbard than the plates of metal worn under it.  
  
Is your guymelef built like this?  
  
To that, Merle only laughed. I barely know how to use one. It would be a shield to me, and it cost too much for that. It's designed from some of Folken's old schematics precisely. There's nothing else like it in the world, and I think the Ispano guymelefs are the only things stronger. She gave him the sidelong, considering look he expected from her. You can use it like Van might have. That's why I wanted you to have it. To make up for... for... what happened to the Schezad.  
  
Allen lowered his eyes without meaning to. No one had spoken of the Schezad since the end of the war. Allen hadn't asked them to. It was just something no one was anxious to bring up again - they all knew what the armor had meant to him, even though it was only a machine. After all, Van wasn't the only one who'd poured his blood and his soul into his vessel, even if it was in a different sense.  
  
He looked up at the armor, its helmet wide and tapered, its shoulders reinforced and the layers of plate made to be ablative against blows from swords or fists. Designs and patterns were cut into the silver of the plates, dancing and twining in all directions without beginning or end, but subtle in their intricacy rather than overwhelming. With a smile he could not suppress, he took a step forward.   
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Merle marveled at Allen's form while he moved toward the guymelef - his guymelef. She knew enough of his past, having heard Dryden discuss it deridingly during their voyage to the mystic valley to know that he had once been a bandit, schooled by Balgous into becoming the hero of Asturia. His second transformation was partly due to her own involvement in his fate.   
  
What is it named? he called to her, never taking his eyes off of his prize.   
  
I... well, I... wasn't really sure... She still didn't know if it had been appropriate for her to name something that was now meant to be a gift, but this guymelef wasn't originally built with him in mind. She'd initially ordered its construction alongside the newer models that Van had designed to test it as a prototype. After her return with a knight of Heaven in tow, she'd asked the engineers to enhance her own armor to construct a war machine for Allen. Since they'd had no time to build anything from the ground up, they simply refitted the existing model and made the enhancements she'd requested. The name had already been engraved into the guymelef's right breast when they had returned from Palas.  
  
At first, she considered asking them to rename it in honor of the Schezad, but hadn't. The Schezad had carried a legacy bigger than a simple name. He might have been insulted. Instead, she left the original name, which now seemed perhaps a bit too appropriate.   
  
It's called the _Ultionis. _ The Vengeance.  
  
_Gere curam mei finis_, Allen read, the verse inscribed under the name. Protect me in my final hour.  
  
Merle set off toward her own war machine, harbored at the other end of the room. It was in many ways similar to the _Ultionis, _ though its framework was more like those of Van's design.   
  
A raised band of dark metal encircled its brow, the stylized embellishments of one of the engineers. He'd told her it was to help distinguish her from the others during a battle, but Merle wasn't so sure she liked the idea. distinguishing marks left few with any questions as to who the leader was, which was rarely a beneficial thing on the battle field. The fact that it looked considerably like a crown was also not lost on her.   
  
Climbing up into the vessel, she didn't try to keep her hand from tracing over its inscription as she glanced back at Allen. The _Providence Lost. _Merle snorted. The Powers that Be had more of a sense of humor than she'd first thought.   
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
It took three days for the forces being constructed near the Dilate to reach the main of the army in old Chesario. For another four days, those forces were refurbished and outfitted, if it was needed. Rested and prepared, there was not one man in the force that could not and would not commit himself solely to the task at hand - Hitomi had seen to that personally.   
  
Now, after all her labor, there was little that could be done. At first light, the soldiers would depart and she would go with them. They would not return to this place until the pendant had been retaken and the final parts of fate captured irrevocably. Nothing would allude her this time. She wouldn't allow it.   
  
Sinking back into the throne, she shifted. The minister was stationary in the corner, waiting in case Hitomi might need something. The woman's visits had been more frequent as of late - probably because rumors of Hitomi's increasingly strange behavior were growing more widespread. If she'd wanted to, she could focus her power to keep such thoughts from occurring in those around her, but it seemed a wasted effort.   
  
No one cared if she was eccentric, as long as they were on the winning side. Quite the opposite, in fact. Eccentricities made men more wary. No one would even consider usurping her if they thought her unpredictable and all-knowing, as she nearly was.   
  
You continue to flatter yourself with such deluding thoughts, do you not?  
  
She groaned at the sound of the voice, drawing a crooked glance from the woman. Instead of faking an explanation, she shut her eyes and pretended to be drowsing. Undignified, perhaps, but more effective than a great many tactics.   
  
Oh, my dear, don't think you can ignore me. I don't just go away, as you may or may not have noticed.   
  
A frown creased Hitomi's brow, but she didn't open her eyes. Who would have assumed Dornkirk would even be capable of humor? She found that it only served to further infuriate her. Why would he not simply leave her be?  
  
There was nothing she could say to him without rousing the minister, so she stayed silent, but looked up at him warily. He was haunting her, trapped within her, as he'd said. Otherwise, the woman would have been able to see him. It was a pointless observation, but it made her resent both the woman and the emperor without meaning to.   
  
Things are coming to a conclusion, it would seem. You are rising up against Fanelia, the very nation you fought me to rebuild, the very nation you watched burn not so very long ago. This time, when its citizens are lying dead in their own blood and the forests weep for the flames that devour the homes and lives of all, rest well in the memory that you and I are not at all different, my girl. That should bring you some comfort, at the least. He tapped his cane on the metal floor forcefully. I hope that it is cold comfort, though. You hardly deserve it.   
  
Something about the scorn in his tone stung her. Why should Dornkirk treat her so foully? After all, they were nearly of the same mind... weren't they?  
  
If the woman hadn't been present, Hitomi would have raged and sworn, would have torn at her garments and hurled her scepter blindly at anything in the room. She would have gone to any length to cause as much damage as possible. Anything to distract herself from him. Anything to forget what once was...  
  
She was already starting to forget. Van was almost gone, so buried in the arms of Eries of Asturia that he would never sway her again. If she had to stand against him, she knew even now, even beyond the point of every kind of denial, that she would lose. That was exactly why she'd wished him away, when she still had that ability. For some reason, that wish tore from her the key to granting wishes. She hadn't been able to determine why it had cost her the pendant, but it mattered very little. Soon, she would have it back again, and nothing could stop her. Not even Van.  
  
You aren't real, old man, she whispered as faintly as she could, knowing that the woman probably heard it anyway. They thought she was losing her mind, and they probably weren't far wrong, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. The end was so close. It was in her grasp.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x   
  
Rows upon rows of guymelefs set out from the looming fortress of Asgard. Serena kept her own pace at their head, leading in her ornate, vast armor. Eventually she would give the order to activate stealth cloaks, but it didn't matter at the moment. They were still a day or more from their destination, and there was no need to waste power. There was also no real need to hurry.   
  
The Empress, whose towering golden guymelef strode along amid a crowd of guards and the general's war machine itself, was at the back of the column. She had at first been upset with the speed of the columns, but was resigned now to following without complaint. Serena saw no need to press them forward. They would arrive inevitably, and their enemies would fall with just as little reverence. Nothing could stop Asgard.  
  
Well, almost nothing. Serena gazed through the falling snow at nothing in particular, remembering the warning the empress had given her before their departure. There would be a man on the battle field - one that she had known very well, and he would try to stop her. Though Serena hadn't let on, she knew full well that it would be Allen.   
  
Initially, when she was first appointed captain of the armies, she expected that this day might come. She and Allen were only ever partly on the same side of things, but she was going to change that. Even Allen, the golden hero of the other lands, would cower before them. How he might actually come to be in the battle was a bit of a mystery to her. As far as she knew, he was still banished from Asturia and hadn't been reinstated, but it made little difference. The empress had not yet been wrong, and Serena didn't expect her to be now.  
  
Further and further the warriors went, slowing for nightfall but not stopping for more than an hour or two at the very most. Even so, Serena felt rested and completely at peace. No nervousness disturbed her rest, and the little food she ate was more than enough to fully satisfy her. The same seemed to be true for the rest of the forces. In fact, the only person who seemed out of sorts was the empress herself.   
  
When Serena saw her out of her guymelef, she was trudging wearily through the snow as if she was carrying the entire army and all of the equipment on her own. The woman never closed her eyes. If she did, she made certain it was after Serena did, and she was always awake before anyone else. Serena would have said something if she thought it would do any good, but the empress was in no mood to be approached. Serena knew better than to push her.  
  
On they went, while the journey blurred into a constant haze of snow. Each step brought her closer to inevitable confrontation, but it was a confrontation that she hungered for. In mere hours, Gaea would feel the strength of Serena of Asgard, who burned even brighter than Allen Schezar. The key to fate would be recovered. Asgard was going to win.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
There was nothing but silence in the castle. Only a scant few lamps still burned in the halls behind her, leaving Eries alone in the dimness. She looked out over the city from her chamber, watching the water sweep by in the causeways below her. Clean and black and cold, it slipped easily through the stone channels into the darker reaches of the night.   
  
Eries wrapped her stole around her a bit more snugly. Van was standing in the courtyard below, wearing his helm and armor. His sword was not drawn, but it was obviously loose in its sheath. How long he'd been there, she couldn't say, but he remained stock still, watching the night just as intently as she was watching him.  
  
Dryden had been right to be concerned about him. Each night he found and led the young king from the courtyard back into the castle, and each night he bathed him and sat him before the fire before leading him back to Eries's chambers. Eries would have done it himself, if Dryden had not suggested they both distance themselves from each-other for a while. Eries grudgingly had to agree.   
  
Each day that passed presented more distance between her and Van. The passion that had once burned so brightly in her for him now seemed hardly real. She still looked on him with affection, still held his shuddering form to her in the night, but it was a very different sort of world that they were now a part of. Her love had dimmed and settled into a much more matriarchal sort of fondness. Though she had said nothing to anyone, she doubted very strongly now that they would ever be married. Like everything else, those desires felt very far away.   
  
She stood where she was until Dryden passed the balcony. he quietly intoned. She held up a finger, watching for just a moment longer before turning to him.   
  
Are you going out to him?  
  
I don't have much of a choice, now do I? The merchant king's face twisted into a wry smile, laced with an ill-concealed concern. He'll freeze to death if I don't do something. I don't understand what's wrong with him.  
  
I think that I do now, after a fashion. Her fingers closed over the railing and she leaned out further, letting the snow wrap around her.  
  
Dryden huffed once, and she could imagine him cocking an elegant eyebrow at her back. She blew out her breath into the cold while it heaved and wreathed into delicate, ghostly forms. Behind her, he shifted impatiently, apparently still waiting for an answer.  
  
When you're done being mysterious, come find me and tell me what this is all about. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fetch your fiance. Again.   
  
Before he could draw back into the corridor, Eries left her post and caught his wrist. Her gaze was likely desperate, holding in it much more emotion than she'd wanted.  
  
There is only one thing we can do for him, Dryden.   
  
He looked at her uncomprehendingly, his lips just slightly open but making no sound. Slowly, the first fingers of understanding took hold in him, but her intentions still alluded him.   
  
Open the gates, Dryden. It was the smallest fragment of a whisper, helped to his ears by the stirring wind. Open the gates, and let him out.  
  
When exactly it was the Dryden left her, she didn't know. She stayed on the balcony, looking down again after an imagined eternity. Van was gone. Eries turned away, back toward the warm interior, but not for long. She had done this much for him because there was no real choice. He needed it, and she was willing to give it. Now, as she sent servant to fetch Dryden back again and to summon the generals and captains, she readied herself for a much bigger decision. She was not yet done helping Van. If it was in her power, there was more that she would do for him.  
  
Ollen70: I'm sorry that there isn't much action in this chapter, and I hope I didn't disappoint anyone because of that. It's coming very soon, and hopefully it will prove to be worth the wait. Thanks for reading. 


	13. When our paths cross

Ollen70: Thanks to Rai Dorian and to Macky for reviewing the last chapter, and Atari for her earlier reviews. You guys give my life meaning.   
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the visions of Escaflowne. I mean no disrespect to its creators by writing this.  
  
Chapter Thirteen - - When our paths cross  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
The music in my heart I bore, long after it was heard no more.   
- - William Wordsworth  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
We have to keep moving forward. This battle can't take place within sight of Fanelia's walls. Merle led the lines of guymelefs outward, away from the new kingdom and across the cold roads. The forest, frozen and silent as always, watched their passing, and it seemed to her mind that the trees almost bent in reverence. Perhaps the forest knew what the outcome would be. Perhaps it knew whether she would ever see her home again.   
  
Why are we drawing away, Merle? You know as well as I that our only chance is within the walls of the castle. Allen stood at her side, the _Ultionis _gleaming like a promise against the cold sky.   
  
We don't know, for sure, who we're fighting or why. All we know is that they want the pendant. Merle kept her voice low, speaking into the communication device in the guymelef and tuning it so that Allen alone could hear her voice. If they get it, there's a good chance they'll leave and let Fanelia be. You know as well as I that we don't stand much of a chance. Our scouts say they spotted a massive army not far from the cross-roads at Old Desria, before it turned invisible. Zaibach's back.  
  
Allen didn't say anything for some time. That was probably best, since Merle found herself with more than enough to think about. She'd faced the possibility - likelihood, rather - that she was going to die in this conflict, but until just now, it hadn't weighed so much. In fact, there was little reason to expect that any of them were going to survive.   
  
Behind her, the soldiers tramped in their war machines with halting, irregular steps, the grinding of the gears and the hissing of the hydraulic systems filling the otherwise serene wood. Each step was one that led further from security and the hope of a proper burial. And hope, in its own right, was by far their rarest commodity.  
  
Merle kept nothing from any of the men who followed behind her. Those who had been hesitant, when their mission was explained, were left behind to guard the castle and the cities, should this entire venture end in disaster. More and more, that eventuality seemed the most likely. Though Merle was certain that she could see through the stealth cloaks on the enemy guymelefs, the rest of those in her army could not. They were relying on her and on her instruction alone to avert destruction, and she wasn't even going to pretend she could handle that pressure.   
  
Clearing the bulk of the forest, Merle called a halt. All around her, the soldiers began to dig in and ready themselves, fortifying the crest of the hill they stood on and erecting small, wooden frames and floorings to hold the canvas for their tents.   
  
Part of her wanted to rage against the futility of building a camp at all. In one day, everything would be over. There was nothing any of them could hope to do against the Zaibach army, especially when their own force was so small. Couldn't they feel the darkness closing in? Didn't they understand what all of this meant? Many of them followed, claiming themselves more than ready to lay down their lives, but so few understood what that really meant.   
  
If she thought it would have been possible, she would have set off on her own and ended all of this without endangering anyone else. Allen, if he'd discovered her, might very well kill her himself before she got within ten leagues of Hitomi and her forces, and he kept a frustratingly close eye on her, as if already understanding what was in her mind.   
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
She could taste its nearness. Every step they took brought her closer to it, but it was still out of her grip... still tormenting her... she needed it. Though the captain set a vigorous pace, it was nowhere near fast enough. They had to get there. They _had _to. She felt as if everything inside of her depended on the pendant and nothing else, but it was still so far from her...  
  
Every opportunity she got, she pressed the troops on at a harder rate. The captain protested more than once, but the sound of her soft, firm voice was a vague buzzing, nothing more. No outside force could touch her, now that completion was literally days away. Dornkirk's vision was coming true, in what anyone else would call a bizarre twist of fate.   
  
Hitomi knew that fate didn't twist - men twisted it to their own liking, forming crude, sculptured chaos out of the crystalline structure of what might have been. Fate had no conscious control. It was not alive. At least, that was what she told herself almost constantly. There was no way fate itself could be defying her. The deck was stacked in her favor this time, and even without the silk bag of tarot cards at her side, she knew what the outcome was going to be.   
  
And yet, maybe fate is a living thing. The languid, elderly voice shocked her. as it always did. By now, she figured that she should probably expect it or have grown used to it, but the specter of a dead emperor was still something of a novelty to her. It certainly could be. The Creator made a great deal of more strange things. Why not give fate its own choice?   
  
The old man lurked in the cramped space between Hitomi and the induction field drum inside the guymelef, watching the world pass by through the golden visor. You've wounded fate, with all your meddling, and I'd say that twisting' doesn't even begin to describe what's happening in the world. Fate is _writhing, _ my dear, because of what you've done to it.   
  
I do what is best. There was no point in arguing with him. She still wasn't even sure if he was real or if the power she wielded wasn't simply driving her insane. Those thoughts didn't trouble her anymore, and that didn't strike her as odd. It was easier to accept things than to fight. There was only one fight that interested her, and in a matter of hours, it would be over.   
  
After all that's happened, you still latch yourself to certainty. What if these things do not transpire as you hope? Have you left enough of yourself that you can recover, if your fears come to pass?  
  
I have foreseen what will be. I have no reason to fear.  
  
Dornkirk laughed long and loud, a steady and almost warm sound. Poor child. Have you forgotten? _I _forsaw a great many things as well, and we both know how well that turned out. Dark eyes were thicker now. Do not rely so heavily on what you see. Did not the woman of Atlantis warn you of what would happen? Of the power of your fears?  
  
Hitomi started to repeat again that she had no fears, but Dornkirk raised an aged hand. I am a part of you now, my dear. I know better, as do you. No matter how many layers of lies you build, the truth is a hard trifle to hide - you have not yet managed it. I do not expect you to.  
  
All that has happened has happened for a reason. I will either control fate for all people, or I will not. He knew that she believed she would. There was no reason for all of this discourse between them, if it was even happening, and as always, he tired her. Day by day, it felt to her that her strength was fading, though the pendant was not far from her now. All that was important was that she find it. Anything that happened after that was... fate...  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Do you see anything, Merle? The _Ultionis _stood right beside the _Providence Lost. _Merle could see Allen's unreadable facethrough the grill of his guymelef, looking out over the dim white landscape.   
  
They're coming, about a league and a half, maybe a little more. Out through the hills, hundreds of shadowed figures came with their great, lumbering, unhurried steps. Merle could hear the clank and grind of the metal giants in her mind - they were too far away for the sound to actually be reaching her.   
  
All along the hill where they'd camped, soldiers manned the large telescopes that were specifically designed to see heat. They would be absolutely useless in battle, but for now, they allowed the defenders to see where the enemy was positioning themselves and to sound an alert if the Zaibach force tried to outflank them.  
  
There was bound to be a fleet of fortresses above them as well, but the swirling snow and clouds hid any trace of them. The telescopes weren't delicate enough to sense heat through all of the cold, but she couldn't detect anything either. That didn't necessarily mean they weren't there, though. Using the pendant was still difficult for Merle.  
  
Do we have any chance at all?  
  
Merle didn't dignify this with a response. They'd been over this far too many times since this morning, and the more she thought about it, the less she wanted to talk about it. No, there was no chance. They were too far outnumbered and too far from Fanelia to call forreinforcements, which had been partly out of design. Though the casualties they sustained would very likely be total, at least the number was still small. What were fifty soldiers compared to the thousands who called Fanelia home?  
  
Inside her, that thought felt wrong. Merle was never a pragmatist, and had a very hard time trying to be. Wasn't any life as valuable as any other, no matter to whom it belonged? Wasn't one death here still far too many? What of the families of the young men who died? Who would mourn for them?  
  
Van would not. Van might not ever know what was taking place here, because Fanelia wasn't his any longer. It belonged to her, and to the people. It had lost its king again, into another world and another life that he never would have had otherwise. She knew better than to deny the jealousy she felt, but it did no good to dwell on what was lost. No one was coming to help her.  
  
It isn't over yet, Merle. Nothing's over yet. But it might as well be, and they both knew it.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x   
  
Behind her, the entire front rank of the Asgard empire fell into heavy pace. Over the silnt ground, the clank of their feet was alomst deafening, but it was of no concern to her. The stealth cloaks were more or less useless anyway, since the defenders above them were already arraying themselves in an effective pattern, several soldiers manning the large telescope-like structures that apparently allowed them to see through the cloaking technology.   
  
Beside her, a young soldier fired his chlima claw upward at one of the defending men. Serena watched the thin ribbons of silver as they wended this way and that, hungrily seeking out their target.   
  
The bolts of doom never completely connected. Sharp and unmistakable, the sound of arching electricity sliced the air and the liquid metal broke and reformed into a hundred irregular spears, like shards of shattered glass. The young man screamed as his guymelef was torn to pieces and the energist in its chest exploded, illuminating the night around them with a blazing plume of orange.  
  
Quietly she swore under her breath. Since the pattern and strength of the chlima claw was controlled by electrical impulses, the Fanelian defenders must have found a way of shielding their war machines with charged fields.   
  
Hold your fire! She cried. If you aim for anything, then aim for those damned telescopes! If they can't see us, they can't stop us! Everyone in her regiment already knew what their mission was. They had not come to engage the lackies - their purpose was simply to find the pendant and then fall back.  
  
As the warriors streamed around her, all pressing upward in a seething mass of distorted air and misplaced snow, Serena scanned the hill-top. Allen was up there somewhere. She could feel him beating in her heart like he was sharing it with her. She was not leaving this battlefield without him, one way or another.   
  
In front of her, an Asgard guymelef fell back down the hill, missing an arm. Its stealth cloak gone, it rolled into more of its charging companions, bringing them all down in another glorious blaze. Serena felt the heat in her blood sing an answering song. Allen Schezar stood above where they had fallen, raising his sword.   
  
Ollen70: Again, I'm very sorry my estimate was so far off. I'm working two jobs right now in order to pay for college, and this is the first day I've gotten completely off in two weeks.   
  
Depending on how things go, the next chapter could very well be the last, or I could add as many as three more. I guess we'll just have to see where things go from here, okay? Thanks for reading, and for being so patient with me. Suggestions and comments are always very much appreciated. Feedback helps cultivate motivation, as I'm sure most of you already know.


	14. What do we become?

  
  
Ollen70: This has taken forever to write. Part of that is because I just started a new job that required me to move out of my house and into an apartment complex for the summer, and it's taken me awhile to get back up and running again. Thanks a million to Macky, Shearre, and Rai Dorian for giving me the reviews that sustain me. You guys are the best.  
  
To Shearre: I was really wondering if someone might mention the lack of big picture' moments, as you pointed out. Part of that was on purpose - due to Hitomi's ability to influence fate, the rise of the new empire wasn't viewed in the eyes of most nations as a threat. It's only perceived that way by Merle because she has Hitomi's pendant. At least that's what I was shooting for. Who knows if I came anywhere close? I'm still kind of new to this whole writing' thing, so I tend to leave huge gaping holes in my plots more often than not.   
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the visions of Escaflowne. I mean no disrespect to its creators by writing this.  
  
Chapter Fourteen - - What do we become?  
  
Allen Schezar, her dear brother, engaged her at once. His guymelef was as vast and as well-built as her own, giving neither of them a clear advantage. Serena wished for a vain moment that she might have been able to watch him fight before now, and judge his capability. Her memories of him assured her that this battle would be a tremendously difficult one.  
  
Taking two steps forward, she deactivated her Chlima claw and drew the emblazoned long sword that was strapped across her guymelef's back. Allen was on her almost before she had freed it. Parrying his first savage thrust took nearly all of her agility, though her sharp riposte obviously tasked his skill as well.   
  
Backward and forward they went, traversing the rolling slope of the hillside but never gaining or losing more than a meter or two of altitude. Above them, one of the telescopic devices burst into bluish flame and toppled to one side with a deafening crash, scattering soldiers in its wake.   
  
This was the only battle that mattered, the silent testing of skill and thought that burned between the two of them. He didn't even know who she was, save that the sight of her had drawn him. Lig Vieta the doppleganger, one of the three legendary swordsman of Gaea, could not have paid higher tribute to her. Upon spotting her, Allen could not deny her. She was in control.   
  
Transporting her blade neatly to one side, Allen went in for a short thrust. It was such a brief, almost unnoticed move that she batted it away awkwardly, knowing at once that her defenses were now compromised. His sword, broader and heavier than hers, came in through the opening, totally exploiting her momentary weakness. Without another thought, she flung open the shield of her guymelef and stared defiantly out at him, achieving the desired effect. His blade stopped stock-still, quivering only inches away from her body.  
  
  
  
It was her only conceivable opportunity. In his moment of disbelief, she swung her armored fist into the left side of his war machine. The metal resounded with a brilliant, bell-like tone, and though it held, the face-shield deactivated and he was thrown like a doll outward into the swirling air. She closed her fist around him and he fell limply against the massive fingers, the impact tearing him out of consciousness.   
  
Collect his guymelef! She called to the nearest Asgard soldiers. See that it is taken to my fortress. If I detect any damage on it, you'll wish we'd lost this battle.  
Handing Allen off to several of the ground soldiers, she waited to make certain they headed in the direction of her floating fortress, suspended and hidden above the layer of clouds. She wished that she could see to his safe passage personally, but duty to the empire overruled any lesser concern.   
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Merle steadied herself, while the battle raged ever more hotly around her. The inevitable was taking place, as she was certain it would. Despite the cries of the wounded and the raging scream of the battle itself, she held a surprising sense of calm within her.   
  
The avant garde of Fanelia was very definitely being driven back. Already two of the six telescopic devices were burning ruins, and the lines on the hill's western spur were slowly being outflanked. Merle stood her ground, battling as effectively as she knew how against the guymelefs that breached the defenses of the hill around her. The bulk of the Zaibach force was still below, nearly obscuring the floor of the valley.   
  
Stealth cloaks weren't much of an issue any more, since the falling snow gave no lie to the position of any guymelef, and in the half light, it was likely the enemy troops were having as hard a time seeing their targets as were the defenders. Above, though it was obvious they were there, the floating fortresses that were the trademarks of Zaibach were impossible to make out.   
  
The sight of the person headed toward her, barely visible in the control chamber of her golden guymelef, made Merle's breath catch painfully. Though this woman wore veils and fine silks that shimmered and traded place in the rising wind, it was a face that Merle couldn't forget. Until just now, she never would have believed that she might someday want to.   
  
So you're here.  
  
You've been expecting us. You know I came for, Merle. Hitomi's face was carved of ice. The Asgard empire's future relies on that pendant.  
  
Asgard? What do you mean Asgard?' This is Zaibach, if I ever saw it.  
  
Zaibach is dead. I killed it myself.  
  
What did you do to Van? At this, Hitomi finally seemed mildly surprised. Merle herself wasn't expecting to call it out so bluntly, but the time for subtlety had long passed. All that waited between them now were answers, and those would be far fewer than the questions that were even now still building. I know you did something. Tell me what you did!  
  
For a long moment, Merle was certain that she wouldn't be answered. Hitomi stared directly at her, giving away absolutely nothing. Merle knew that her own eyes were giving less. Any civility between them now was completely feigned; this was war and both of them knew it.   
  
What happened between Van and I was a personal matter. It doesn't have anything to do with you. I came here to retrieve something of mine, something that you have, Merle. Give it back to me.  
  
Merle missed Hitomi. Not this pale, convoluted mistake that wore her face, but the real Hitomi, the Hitomi that was kind and caring, horrified over the loss of any life - horrified with herself, even, when she learned the effects of her tarot readings and her wishes on the fabric of Fate. This new apparition had none of those values. As much alike as they looked to the untrained eye, they were well and truly separate. No two creatures could be more different.   
  
What happened to you? What the hell did you do to yourself?!  
  
A low laugh made Merle's skin crawl. I knew you'd agree, She said, though it didn't feel like the words were meant for Merle. I wouldn't expect any faith from you.  
  
Drawing backward, Merle brought her guymelef into a defensive stance. I'm not giving you anything. Just turn around and go, or I'll kill you.  
  
You've never killed anyone, Merle. You won't start with me. Don't you remember... when we were friends...? The voice was suddenly intensely innocent, holding none of the darkness that filled the empress's face.   
  
I don't know who you are, Merle told her, the shakiness flooding out of her voice, replaced by stark and unnatural confidence. I've never seen you before in my life.  
  
You don't know me? Hitomi parroted. I, Merle, I am the Empress of the Asgard, the new Queen of the Sun and the Moon. I, who wear the crowns of Chesario and of Baslam, of Menrias and of old Desria. I, who have not been defeated nor turned aside...  
  
I don't know who you are, Merle said again. That person doesn't exist. There _is _no Asgard Empire. None of this is supposed to exist.  
  
Denial can't help you now, Merle. Just give me what I came for. I'll even bring Van back to you when this is over, if that's what you want. He abandoned you, didn't he? Don't you want him back? Just give me the pendant... The crooning, dangerous tone, like poisoned wine, made Merle feel physically ill when she heard it. Hitomi, for all her differences, was supposed to be her friend. None of this was right.   
  
How many people have _you _killed, Hitomi? Think you can start with me? That's what it'll cost you. I'm not going to give you anything...  
  
Hitomi didn't answer. The sword she drew was a broad, curved creation that was a scimitar in spite of itself. Its cutting edge was fluted and deadly, waiting with the same fatal expectation of its owner. Merle drew the sword at the side of her own guymelef. Its blade was of a more traditional design, a long sword rather than a katana or falchion or claymore.   
  
The two guymelefs circled each-other, suddenly alone on the barren, snowy field. The air was so filled with falling whiteness that Merle could barely make out the golden war machine in front of her, but it didn't matter. She could feel the presence of her enemy.  
  
This is your last chance, Merle! Give it to me, and I promise you, everything will be over. Fanelia will be spared. No one from Asgard will ever threaten your kingdom. I'll bring Van back to you...  
  
What was wrong here? In her mind, Merle could still see Hitomi - the Hitomi who'd held her when Van was nearly being torn apart as the Ispano repaired his guymelef. The Hitomi who went after Van, rescued him from his own death, from the curse of the lost Dragon Slayers. Why had this happened? What had changed, leading Hitomi to be willing to kill her now?   
  
There was no going back. Merle could read that, as if it were written in the woven fabric of the air. This confrontation was bound to be the definition of all things - the end of all things. All around her, time seemed to slow. There was a pulsing at her neck, and a resounding pound from the golden guymelef of the one who had betrayed her, and beyond that, nothing was real.  
  
A great blast came from the chest of Hitomi's guymelef, roaring angrily and twisting like rising heat through the air, scattering the snow before it like leaves before a raging gale. At the same moment, Merle let her mind go. The pendant glowed brighter and brighter, each pulse tripling its lucence.The light was neither green nor red, but a soft and crystalline blue.   
  
Where it came from and why, Merle didn't know, nor did she care. The glow was blinding, growing in wrath and springing free of the pendant. It raced across the field, toward the empress and her guymelef. The world took one deep breath, nothing more, and then the two powers collided.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x   
  
Merle woke slowly. Unlike the usual period of waking, there was a cold, hazy film over her, keeping her from clearly recognizing anything at first. Things swam and changed before her eyes, all at once solidifying with a glaring intensity that almost made her sick.   
  
A man gazed into her face. His long, blonde hair fell in a dizzying cascade, prompting her already addled mind to determine that she was lying down and he was leaning over her. He held something under her nose, something that made her cough weakly every time she tried to breathe. Smiling faintly, the man drew his hand away.   
  
I'm glad to see you're still with us, milady. It wasn't Allen, and she was disappointed. His outline was strikingly similar to that of the knight of heaven, but when her eyes cleared, she recognized the young brigadier who had accompanied them at the head of the party.   
  
Some thought you wouldn't recover, though we are all glad they were wrong. He held a goblet of water to her lips, lifting her up off of some sort of bed or pallet so she could drink from it properly. Almost sputtering under the liquid, she slammed her hand to her chest, seeking frantically for the silver chain as realization sunk into her like the goading point of a blade.  
  
  
  
was all she heard. The knight said something else, but it didn't matter. Had Hitomi spared her out of pity, out of some remembrance of what used to be, or was it out of contempt? Was she meant to live now only to dwell in her largest failure? Zaibach... or Asgard... now had the pendant and the ties to the fate of Gaea.  
  
...toward the east after you fell, milady, the brigadier was saying. We were spared, but only if we pledged not to follow, nor to seek retribution of any kind. The lady of Asgard told us Fanelia would not be troubled by our armies again.  
  
I don't know that I trust Hitomi's word any more than I would have trusted Folken's, She murmured, attempting to sit up further. The throbbing in her head defeated her instantly, and she sunk with a small whimper back into the folds of the bed below her.   
  
What happened to the armies? Is anyone else alive? She dreaded the answer he might give, but it was something she had to know.   
  
Nearly every soldier is accounted for... His pause opened her eyes.  
  
Who is missing? Who? Tell me! Pain or no, she rose to her feet without a moment's hesitation. The man balked, pushing hair out of his face. Where is Allen?  
  
They've... they taken him. That was one of the conditions of our...  
  
Prepare my guymelef.  
  
  
  
Didn't you hear me?!   
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
There was sunlight above the clouds, shining through the vaulted oriels of  
the _Sores, _ the floating fortress built exclusively for Serena. She waited patiently, while the small army of soldiers and sorcerer's apprentices scuttled back and forth on the lower decks of the command bay. Occasionally they called up to her regarding the status of their progress, which wasn't especially marked.   
  
The Empress's decision to storm Fanelia on foot to retrieve the key of fate was, in retrospect, a wise one. The floating fortresses moved slowly in the winter snows, since they had to maintain a great enough altitude to stay above the clouds, or else risk taking damage in the storms or, worse yet, being seen by the nations who were not under the spell of the destiny prognostication engine.   
  
Because of the not-yet-fully-understood blast that had rendered most of the Fanelian avant garde and a good many of the Asgard men unconscious, the destiny engine didn't seem to be working as effectively as before. Other kings might order an attack, and the Empress was explicit in her order that they were not to be delayed until the entire army was positioned in the mountains west of the Duchy of Fried.   
  
Of course, Serena only kept half a mind on all of this. The most gripping focus, for her, lay in the infirmaries twelve decks below her, still sleeping after the heavy doses of sedatives he'd been given. Allen Schezar was with her now, giving promise to the Asgard empire that was beyond what they had right to expect. Once he was with her, there would be no end to their power.  
  
Ollen70: This is not the end, even though I promised it was going to be. There will be at least one, and perhaps two more chapters after this one. I was about to finish everything up, but the potential for this to keep going was there. Who was I to deny it? Anyway, thanks for being so patient with me. If it weren't for you, my terrific readers, this would still be a one-shot, like it was supposed to be. 


	15. Older and far away

  
  
Ollen70: Geez, all you people expect me to actually _think _about what I'm writing? To be totally honest, I had no plan when I first started this story and I have even less of one now. My writing always just sort of happens. I have little or nothing to do with it. )  
  
But, at any rate, thanks for all of the incredibly wonderful (and long) reviews that you've sent. I couldn't help reading over them and thinking hey, that really _does _happen, doesn't it? Wow!' (sigh) I never said I was a quick one. The vast amounts of time I take between updates should prove that beyond reasonable doubt...  
  
To Rai, kazezero, Shinji Ikari, Macky, Inda, and Wink57CS, thank you so much for your reviews. I hope this chapter answers all of your questions, or at least goes a little way toward explaining some things.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Vision of Escaflowne. I mean no disrespect to its creators by writing this.  
  
Chapter Fifteen - - Older and far away  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
With the undercurrent lurking, watching sideways from afar... could you take away my weakness? I'm not that strong... You see, I feel so heavy here without you...  
  
Butterfly Boucher - Drift On  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Many of the soldiers were shocked when Merle rallied them and set off again, away from Fanelia, but they were even more surprised when she told them, loudly and clearly, that they would be under the command of the young brigadier, and that she would not be coming with them.  
  
You're going back to Fanelia, then? The general asked, eyes wider than they ought to have been.  
  
she told him, blatantly assuring herself that she wasn't going to sugar-coat anything for him. He deserved to know her intentions fully, even if he was bound to disagree with them. That entire army came from Asgard and went toward Freid. I remember what was in Asgard, the time Van and Dryden and the rest of us went there, and I'm sure I can find it again. If she took everyone with her, or even most of them, I think I can find out what she left there - maybe I can figure out why all of this is happening.  
  
Of course the man protested, as she had assumed, but she didn't think he would protest for quite as long as he did, following her across most of the encampment when she tried to flee from him. Most of his objections weren't about her plan, which he called reasonably sound, but rather because she insisted on going alone.  
  
What happens if they catch you? What if you're wrong, and we've only seen half of the army so far? What if the rest of them are waiting there? Merle very strongly doubted that. Something in the outright arrogance in Hitomi's eyes, the complete change she now saw in the woman's face... no, Hitomi believed she would not be challenged. That confidence was the only thing that gave Merle hope.  
  
This is my chance. It's probably the last chance any of us are going to get, and if I can do anything at all to stop this, I will. She set a brisk pace toward her guymelef, with him not three paces behind her and closing. I have to take care of the people, if Lord Van won't anymore. I have to do whatever I can.  
  
If getting away from the general required some doing, persuading the troops to follow her command was infinitely more difficult. It seemed the difference between loyalty and obedience was greater than she might have supposed, leading to the point where she had to threaten more than one of them bodily before they would let her go her own way, falling into line behind the Brigadier with half-hearted grumbles and coarse glares.  
  
For all her part, Merle paid them little enough attention. She had to make her way to Asgard, one way or another, but it was going to be anything but easy. An ocean separated the dark continent from Fanelia, and their small kingdom had never been known for levy-ships in the manner of Baslam or even Fried. Even if she did manage to find a captain who would take her across the water, by the time they made it there, chances are she would be far too late.  
  
If only Allen were here. She doubted he really could have done anything, and she stunned herself by thinking of him at all, but he would at least be someone to talk with about all of this, and she wanted him out of Hitomi's hands. He would think her crazy for what she was planning, naturally, and not the part about going to Asgard. She was going to get there the way Hitomi traveled, now that she thought she understood at least a little of how it worked.  
  
_Do you remember what Hitomi was always saying, about how people return your feelings?' _She said that to Van once, in what felt like another life. _She'll hear your thoughts, lord Van. All you have to do is think of her.' _There was no one in Asgard for her to think of - she hoped there wasn't more than a handful of soldiers there anyway, and she certainly didn't expect to find anyone she knew among them. But there was always the chance that the connection between two people wasn't the only thing strong enough to bridge a gap.  
  
Perhaps if a place were _needed _badly enough, it would work in the same way? It was a long shot, and probably as dangerous as anything she could imagine, but what else was left to try? Hitomi was far ahead of them, heading into Fried with her army. Merle's small force might not even catch up to them in time, much less make any kind of impact if it did.  
  
Merle had no connection to the pendant like Hitomi did, or even as Van had. All she'd done was hold it for a time, but she could remember what it felt like, the calmness found deep within the green sparkle of the gem that felt very artificial. Hitomi's anxiety had been the reason misfortune was always following them, or Varie had said something of that nature at least. Maybe Hitomi had done something to it to change that influence - she didn't know, and speculation wasn't helping her right now.  
  
Climbing up into the control chamber of her guymelef, she watched as the force broke camp and left the top of the hill, streaming down the blue-white line that swathed across the serene brightness of the snowy landscape. When the last metal giant was out of sight over the next rise, she shifted her gaze up toward the sky.  
  
The daylight was fading, but swirling gray was all that she could see anyway. It didn't matter. One way or another, she would find her way despite the things that would inhibit her. The despond of the day, the hopelessness the sky was over-run with could not hold her back. With all her mind, she focused only on her one thought, the one wish she could not afford to lose focus of. A soft glow sprouted, then bloomed into a blinding, icy rage. All around her, with the slow surety of a passing dream, the world changed.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Hitomi stood before the gates of the great palace of Freid, all around her the guymelefs of Asgard and soldiers with cloaks and shields adorned with stars formed her avant garde. A young man in a green tabbard and bronze helm bearing a large white plume watched them warily. There was no fear in his eyes, by any means, and every time he looked her way, a smile lit up his face.  
  
Welcome to the kingdom of Freid, Hitomi of Asgard, he called out grandly. You and your men are welcome here, to be given every luxury that I might afford you. It is our honor to host such an impressive array of warriors and guymelefs here in Godashim.  
  
Hitomi bowed deeply, admiring the young prince as he stood rigidly and correctly, affording a smile that was for him alone. Of all the royalty she had ever met in Gaea, Chid was one of her very favorite. I thank you for your gracious reception, Duke Chid of Freid, on behalf of myself and also that of the Asgard empire. They bowed to each-other as equals, and the throng of people around them began to ebb. The bare-chested warriors of Freid went their own way, and the columns of Asgard soldiers broke and made their way toward the east, where the floating fortresses were anchored.  
  
It's very good to see you again, Hitomi. He bowed again, a friendly affair, letting the stiffness ebb away. Those blue eyes were bright and curious now. No one was sure what happened to you, after the allies fought against Zaibach. I'm so glad to see that you're safe.  
  
Zaibach won't threaten anyone anymore, prince Chid. The curiosity in his eyes grew. In fact, Zaibach doesn't even exist any longer. Hitomi took a hesitant step forward. She had decided some time ago what she was going to say once she finally arrived here. If there was anyone in all of Gaea that she wanted to protect more than Van, it was Chid.  
  
Your father died to let the power rise again, Chidzar Freid. I ask that you let Asgard take that power and use it for the benefit of mankind, which Zaibach could not do. I promise you, I won't let anyone harm your people. I won't let the power out of my control. At first I was afraid of it, as everyone was, but I've come to see that Folken was right - the power of destiny should be used to help shape the world in a better way. Dornkirk would have enslaved destiny, but I mean to work with it, to coax it, not to control it.  
  
Fate cannot be used as a tool, my child. Fate has its own intentions that are bigger than you and I can ever be. Cooperate with gravity all that you like - if it means to pull you downward you will still fall, no matter how little harm you intend it. Fate cannot understand being molded, just as we were not meant to understand the intricacies of its design.  
  
If Chid heard Dornkirk's voice at all, and Hitomi was long ago convinced that no one else could, the young prince gave no sign. The Emperor's cloaked form stood near the window, but cast no shadow over the stones of the floor, and though Chid should have noticed the old man out of the corner of his eye, he didn't look toward him. Hitomi almost sighed, still wishing somehow that he had.  
  
Hitomi, will you do a reading for me? You did one once, a long time ago...  
  
And it was a very good reading, prince Chid.Why do you want me to do it again?  
  
I... sometimes I worry that... well, that things have... changed. Maybe that future isn't there anymore. I just... I just want to be sure...  
  
It's been a long time since I've done a reading...  
  
If your heart was full of turmoil then, pulling futures of fear and doubt toward you, I shudder to think what terrors you might bring now.  
  
Please, Hitomi?  
  
Hitomi watched the young prince with eyes that wavered. Her fingers hovered near the silk pouch at her side, while looking down at the boy who admired her, even after her transformation. He admired Hitomi Kanzaki, for all her faults, just the way he admired with innocence Allen Schezar, closed away from the truth and yet not caring about what it might reveal. Dornkirk was now closer than before, standing directly behind Chid. His rheumy eyes flickered just as she did, betraying anticipation or perhaps... dread...?  
  
Prince Chid, I will read your fortune... but let us make a deal first... She forced her smile to be as bright as his, if not considerably more forced.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
The white dragon beneath him lurched and rolled in the white gales that lashed the air. He didn't know what his destination was, except that something was calling to him now, stronger than ever now that the Escaflowne was near. He could feel Eries as well, but she was changing. She no longer felt like a cry within him, a horn-call to the west that couldn't be escaped. Instead, her tone was a susurrus reassurance - a galvanization now, rather than a hindrance. He would heed the call, make use of the tremendous gift she had granted him in his freedom, and find what it was that called him.  
  
Each beat of the metal wings sent eddies of white crystalline flakes fleeing in every direction, most of them up and over the guymelef and directly into Van's eyes. He shielded them without worry - they were high enough in the air that there was no risk of crashing into the ground, and the only thing guiding his course at all was the pulsing, veiled sense of foreboding that emanated from deep within him. It was almost as if someone were trying to keep the beacon hidden from him. He had to focus to prevent his mind from sliding off of it, like a raindrop against a pane of glass.  
  
Escaflowne began to fly of itself as the snow increased, without Van's guiding hand any longer. It was hardly a surprise for him, considering the strength of their bond, but it hadn't responded to him this strongly, acting as if his thoughts were its own, since before he began the doomed search for... something? All he remembered after the war of Fortune was that something had been missing, he'd gone to look for it, and he hadn't found it. Maybe that was what called him now, but he couldn't be certain. All he knew was that it was necessary to keep going this way. Nothing could be allowed to impede him.  
  
Far below, barely even conceivable from out of the omnipresent whiteness, something more solid flickered. It might have been land, but he wasn't sure. Escaflowne descended, confirming even through the gloom that land indeed lay beneath them. Wherever he was, Van had no memory of it at all, but since the guymelef seemed to know where it was going, he concentrated on shielding his face against the flurries and the aching chill.  
  
_This discovery that precedes you has ever been a part of your fate... this fate that should never have existed...'  
  
_The voice, wherever it came from, almost jarred him from the Escaflowne's saddle. It was a voice he knew very well, but he couldn't place it. No sooner had he registered that he had heard a voice at all than the memory of what it sounded like began to fade, leaving only the residue of a moment lost long ago to time. He shook his head, beginning his descent. If nothing else could be certain out of all of this, he knew that answers were waiting for him on the frozen turf far below, no matter how unpleasant they may prove to be.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
His eyes flickered under their lids, giving Serena the assurance she needed. Her hour of standing by Allen's bedside had not been in vain - he was coming around, albeit in his own time. Laid out flat on the metal platform in the infirmary of her fortress, his still form reminded her all too clearly of a dead man, lying out for the eyes of loved ones before they fed him to the earth. The healers assured her that the bare start of his eyes was a good sign.  
  
Serena pushed back her now-long silver tresses as she leaned over her brother. He still wore the pauldrons and collar of his armor, but the breastplate and helmet had been removed, baring his face and chest to the cooler air of the room. She ran one hand over his skin, feeling his heart beat gently under her touch with the same calm consideration that defined every aspect of her older brother. He was beautiful, as always, even with the faint scars that marked him as a mortal and not the divine hero others sometimes saw him as.  
  
Blue eyes opened to the dim light at last, though Allen still squinted when she looked at him. What... what's going...?' All at once he shot up, forcing her to retreat a few steps out of sheer surprise.  
  
Who are you?! He cried out. Are you Dilandau again? Did they change you?!  
  
She resumed her place at her side, placing a placating arm on the steel pauldron over his shoulder, but he started as if she'd struck him.  
  
You're working with _them, _aren't you? They've changed you somehow, brought that monster back out of you somehow. The squint scanned her face again. You still look like Serena, but I don't believe it!  
  
It would have been a lie to say that she hadn't been expecting this from him. Allen did what he saw to be right, and clung to the kind of chivalry that did his station proud. Rather, it did his former station proud. Allen was no longer a Knight of Heaven, but she would give him his glory back again. Already that peculiar cat-woman from Fanelia had done wonders for him, and Serena did not begrudge admiring her for it.  
  
It's a new era, Allen. Times are changing, and we have to change with them. The Empress... she'll make everything right. I have faith in her, and even after everything that's happened... She lay down over him, though he winced at the pressure of her body. Her head rested against his chest easily. He was very likely still bruised badly from the battle, especially along his ribs, so she didn't place all her weight on him. Just the same, it was so comforting to feel his warmth, to feel the consistency that throbbed beneath his flesh and muscle and bone, singing its song in her ear without reservation.  
  
There would be time enough to convince him of their purpose. Allen _would _stand with her, if it took her the rest of her life to make him see reason, but for now, it was enough to be with him. For far too long they had been apart, and though Allen's retrieval had not been part of the Empress's plan, Serena knew this self-indulgant act would not be held against her. She needed Allen, and he needed her, whether he knew it or not. Now, more than ever before.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Hitomi watched Chid leave the room, making his way back to his quarters anxiously to wait for her to settle herself. She felt for the silk pouch at her side that held her deck of waxed tarot cards. They were there, but she barely noticed them. Dornkirk captured her attention, pressing in before her, his old face as stern as she had ever seen it.  
  
Don't even bother. There's nothing you can say that will dissuade me, no matter what you try. Why don't you just give up already, and leave me alone? As if she hadn't spoken at all, he took a gliding step forward, while she took an unintentional stumbling pace backward.  
  
You overestimate the power of the human mind, my dear child. You've proven your intellect, in a way vast and emphatic enough to capture my attention, even before I knew fully what your appearance in Gaea would portend, but intellect alone is not the essence of the mind.  
  
And you, in your infinite wisdom, have discovered this? You're dead. The kindness of memory killed you two hundred years ago. Imagine the stain on the history of the world if our people knew how wrong they were.  
  
At this, Dornkirk laughed outright. How long has it been, since I was called Isaac? Since I was truly the scientist, the builder of thought and precept, and not an emperor using that name as a disguise? When she balked at his echoing jubilance, he lowered his voice again, not shaken in the slightest by her vehemence.  
  
We are fickle creatures, captured like moths in the flaring brilliance of one moment or the next. The grasping and the tempering of any strand of Fate cannot be done with half a mind. Let it go, even for the barest fraction of a moment, and the repercussions will overwhelm you. Perhaps it was the repercussion, the slackening of the coil of Fate, that brought you to this place in your life. Perhaps, and now he was musing, not looking directly at her and likely not seeing her at any rate, perhaps it does indeed prove the sentience of Fate, or the sentience of one who watches over Fate, who can punish the arrogance of those like us.  
  
I'm nothing like...  
  
Oh, my dear, I know you would love to think that, because your intentions were pure, you can lay all fault aside. Do you know, though, that _my _intentions were never cruel, in the beginning? Did you think you could take the power of Atlantis without laying something aside in its place? Have you descended so far that you no longer even see what you have lost? After a long moment of silence, he pulled away toward the shadows once again. Can there be a worse eventuality than that? To lose the very ability to feel remorse? I can surely think of none.  
  
Focusing solely on the old man, he stopped suddenly, coughing in surprise. She wasn't going to let him leave now, not yet. If he could intrude into her thoughts whenever he chose, she was going to hold onto him until she learned what she wanted to know.  
  
You condemn me, call me a fool, tell me the power of Atlantis can never be a tool, but _you _unearthed it! If all of this was futile... if it was never meant to be... she wasn't sure what she wanted to say, but there was a desperation within her that was growing by the moment, unfurling like a banner throughout her, how do you turn back? How do you let something like this go?  
  
Dornkirk's expression was one that did not quite reach pity. Sympathy, rather, was rich in the eyes that were pale, their color seeming wept away to her, for the first time.  
  
My dear, I remember a time - it seems so long ago, now - when you spoke what you thought of destiny manipulation. A moral wrong, you called it, to force any person to be happy when they might not be otherwise. Every person deserves a right to choose happiness and sorrow of their own accord, or so you said, and yet you now wield the very device you condemned in my stead. He polished the head of his dark cane on the hem of his long jacket. All this time, I've wondered only one thing.  
  
she asked for him, fingering the heavy crowns on her brow. Their weight seemed greater every day. Because I learned that some people... some people... aren't capable of choosing happiness. If they never take that path... if they never let God or the stars or the pull of Fate itself lead them in that direction... I just couldn't wait any longer. I have to do this, she murmered. I've learned how. I can make a union between the machine - between human thought - and between the violence of destiny. I can elimiate war, but still give people choice. I'm sure I can.  
  
Drawing close, a phantom hand ghosted near her cheek again, a familiar pantomime of a patriarchal gesture. And now, I fear, you are beginning to understand that, after all of this, you were right in what you said to me at our first meeting. All this time... oh, my child...  
  
Hitomi sank to the floor, sobbing desperately as a deep and terrible loneliness surrounded her, wrapped in an embrace that she could not feel. Forgive me, Van, but I... I don't think I ever had a choice...  
  
Shhhh, shhhh, child. It'll be alright...  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Like a star exploding, the white light around her burst outward, and Merle's guymelef landed with a dull, ringing crash. She pulled it up into a defensive pose immediately, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the snowy gloom around her.  
  
The scene around her was like nothing else to be found on Gaea - a landscape dominated by looming mountains in a part of the world where dawn never came. The world would end before it did. On those peaks rose the shadowed forms of buildings and domes, waiting like cold predators for her to approach them, to fall under their spell and to be dommed when she passed below them.  
  
With a grim smile, Merle adjusted herself in the command chamber of the _Providence Lost. _There was no other soul in sight, and she had arrived exactly where she'd intended. Time would tell if this had been a foolish decision, but as of now, there was no choice but to press forward. Fate was waiting for her.  
  
x x x x x x x x x x x x  
  
Ollen70: Again, a much longer break between chapters than there ought to have been. A million thank-yous go out to everyone who's put up with me and my delays thus far. 


	16. What was lost

Chapter Sixteen - - What was lost

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink  
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;  
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink  
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;  
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,  
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;  
Yet many a man is making friends with death  
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.  
It well may be that in a difficult hour,  
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,  
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,  
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,  
Or trade the memory of this night for food.  
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Dark figments watched her from the snow-bound peaks as Merle forced her guymelef through the deep drifts and the surly darkness that never lifted. All around, the huge domes and spires felt like black predators, waiting with malicious intent for her to lose her wariness. Was it so long ago that she herself had been here, facing the Vione and the last remaining pieces of the mystic valley?

That past was so long gone that it was nearly already forgotten - the past where the world made sense, where Van was at her side and she was concerned only about his safety, not feeling so lost and so utterly, violently alone. 

Ahead, down a sheer white slope, a final peak grew from the valley floor. It was crowned with what could only be a floating fortress, or the remains of one, transfigured into a mighty citadel. Whatever it was that she was searching for, this was where it was kept. She knew that more clearly than she knew her own name.

Only two guymelefs confronted her as she descended down the whitened slope, the last guards in this valley that no one by normal means could have found. Without even understanding how, they were crushed by her sword and the pilots scattered, brushed aside harmlessly. They might have been dead - she didn't know, but she couldn't let it matter. Right now, only one thing was important.

Her purpose, her great impossibility, was in reach. She shouldn't have been able to come this far - Hitomi was the one with the power of fate. She'd taken back the pendant, leaving Merle with nothing but a terrible desperation that even now still twisted inside her. 

Van was gone and he wasn't coming back. Merle was more alone now than she could remember, even watching the pillar of light arch into the sky on the night when Fanelia fell, knowing that Van was leaving her behind. She didn't know what had become of him then, and she didn't know now, but it couldn't matter anymore.

This had become her fight. Allen was gone, Hitomi was gone, Van... all of it was so far away and still, it clung to her. There was no victory. There would be no end, and yet the choice was made.

Stone steps led up the last face of the peak before her. On it was a fortress she recognized, though she hadn't ever heard its name. This was one of the last, that had launched its assault during the first battle near Palas, hovering high enough on the horizon that it could be seen from the fortress itself. Not as large as the Vione had been , it carried a sterner darkness that frightened her.

A pair of heavy metal doors shuttered the fortress. Throwing her weight against them was barely enough to shift them enough to let her in, and they slammed resolutely behind her once she was inside.

Above, dim vaults opened higher than her eyes could follow, vanishing amid a dark tangle of tapestries that fluttered aimlessly, like abandoned webs. A single spiral stair ascended in the center of this monument of gloom, the first steps yielding a sight that was both horrific and expected. A series of giant gears rotated slowly beneath a massive green-crystal globe. This was the destiny machine, created by Zaibach to alter and manipulate fate. Merle hadn't ever seen it before, but she could _feel _it. Something inside her reached out to it, fighting to close the gap between them.

One way or another, this monstrosity lay at the end of her journey. Today, in this lightless, lost place, there would be a conclusion. She was afraid.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

The first symbol that Hitomi drew was the sun, inked brightly onto the waxy card she held between forefingers, eventually placing it lightly on the table. She explained its meaning casually to the wide-eyed prince before drawing the next. Judgment, followed by star, both took places to the left and to the right of the sun card.

Wind blew against the window of the room, and the cascade of snow that pelted against it deflected silently into the void of the encroaching evening. Soon it would be dark already, the heavy thickness of a night in winter, when the world was at its darkest in spite of the eternal whiteness spread across the earth.

Hitomi... Hitomi, may I ask you something?

Startled from her wandering thoughts, she glanced up with a hint of concern. What is it, prince Chid?

He seemed to look into himself for a moment, staring at the cards on the table but obviously seeing something very far away. Hitomi, do your predictions always come true? A bit surprised by this question, she blinked.

Almost always, my prince. I've got... a good feel for the cards. Looking at his face, she felt a small pang in her chest. Is something the matter? Are you feeling alright, my prince?When my... did you know, Hitomi? Did you foresee it, when my... my father... He stopped for a moment and she drew the hanged man, laying it down carefully above the sun card. You won't let anything like that happen again, will you? Isn't that why you're taking the power of fate?Y..yes, of course. She was surprised again by how strongly she meant it, which shouldn't have been a surprise at all. If there was anyone she could wish to protect over and above Van, it was Chid. The course of his life to this point was something she would give every part of herself to change - he'd lost as much as Van, only chosen to deal with it very differently. She owed him every bit as much, and would repay him with the kind of future he deserved - one without darkness and hopelessness, one without loneliness and fear. 

The ten of cups followed the fool card, and she spoke of each briefly for him while she assessed the fortune as a whole. It was an enviable one, the sort of fortune she wished she might be able to tell for every person she came across. She marveled for a moment - In a few more hours, that wish was going to come true.

There was so much still to be done that the stillness of this moment seemed an unfair vanity that she could barely afford. Her soldiers were already on their way into the temple, as per her agreement with the prince, and it wasn't necessary that she go with them. She would know the moment the power spot became fully active, and then it would be time to truly begin.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Eries leaned back against into the chair that was bolted into the deck for her, as the lord commander of this mission. Below her, the levy-ship rumbled softly as it pressed forward. Outside, beyond the thick curtain of falling snow, the rest of the Asturian fleet followed in tight formation.

All had seen the passing of the fortresses of Zaibach, though they had not attempted to use Asturia as a staging ground. Their destination was all too obvious, just the same. Though a great deal of questions remained - where had Zaibach suddenly some from, if they had been all but destroyed in the last battle, as everyone claimed? What happened to the allies who had risen against them? And finally, most sickeningly, why were they headed from Fanelia? - the terms of the war still remained. Zaibach was their enemy now, and it was her duty as the second of the royal family to protect her nation.

Dryden hadn't seen it in that light, at the first. Taking the bulk of the military out of Asturia was not what he considered a sound practice, especially when she meant to pursue a force many times larger than her own into Freid, where she could count on no assistance. Or at least those were the objections he paid lip service to. when it came time, he all but hand-chose the troops himself. Everyone knew what had happened to Freid the first time. She was not planning on standing by and letting her nephew's kingdom be desiccated again, not when she had a chance - albeit a small one - of stopping it.

There was little hope in this endeavor. Expecting anything else was fallacy, as she and every other member of this crusade well knew. It had deterred only a very few. When called, nearly every member of the royal knights had flocked to her side, eager to board the ships that could lead them to death. Even the knights of heaven had sent four of their own to stand beside her. The others were left behind to marshal the border guard in case some ill fate befell Asturia in their absence. And, she thought darkly, to train a new army after these events came to fruition.

Fortresses located in Aertra quadrant, my lady, called the helmsman from his position near the control consoles, breaking her back into the moment. Through the windows, all that was visible was the falling snow, but...

What on Gaea...? the white melee parted in certain places in the sky, striking and falling in ways that couldn't be possible. Unless, of course, there was something in their path.

From the other vessels, we've discovered the position of twelve fortresses, all moored over the western border of Fried.Have we received any word from Godashim? Below them, the capital of Fried was still invisible under the snow. They dared not land, in case by some miracle they hadn't yet been spotted.

No, not so far. All we can be certain of is that the fortresses have positioned themselves over Fortuna.

Eries acknowledged the man's words with a nod. That could mean only one thing. Twice now, Asturia had failed to defend Freid when it was in need. Twice now, the land of her sister and her nephew had been ravaged and left in waste - the empire would have done nothing else.

Prepare to send out the garrison, commander. her voice was bitter quiet in her own ears. We'll make them suffer for this.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Direction lost all meaning to Van. As the Escaflowne flew on, presumably guiding itself, he could merely cling to the reigns with a grim determination. Even if he wished to, there was no way to turn from this decision now. The snows were too strong - unless he kept to the course that the guymelef was choosing, he would die in the storm.

Though there was nothing to see, a strong recognition flowed out of him as the whiteness pressed in. If he didn't know better, he would swear he had been here before. And he would swear as well that, whatever had happened during that last encounter, it had been horrific.

The ties that bound him were slowly, gently coming undone. He would have torn them to shreds, if he knew how. Instead, he kept his head low against the buffeting of the wind and the raw blades of snow. His face already smarted brutally from the pressing drifts, and he had no idea how close to his destination he drew.

_Onward, young one. You have a great deal further to come, before you rest._

That same voice rang through the chamber of his mind, fragmenting again when he tried to pin it down, but this time the fragments didn't fade away.

Unable to hold himself in, he called to it. Who are you?Yes, who are you? The voice asked him, impenetrably calm. _Are you real? Could it be...?_

And then in was gone, and he was alone once more, the Escaflowne descending to the white-gray surface of Gaea, in a place where light and warmth no longer existed. He knew where he was being called now, down toward a barely visible peak that glistened in a memory that shouldn't have been there.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Allen stood still in the command deck of the _Soreis,_ shifting uncomfortably in the robes and cloak Serena's servants had given him. The field of stars stood out in silver embroidery on the chest and right arm, a mark he hadn't yet taken the time to tear off. There were too many other things to worry about to be concerned over something as simple as a design worked onto fabric.

Serena was not far from him, standing in the middle of the deck in her black armor, hair bound into a single braid almost identical to his, but brilliant white-silver rather than gold. She was facing the large windows of the deck, looking out over the crater Allen knew too well. They held their ground over Fortuna temple, waiting for one single event that would change the world irrevocably.

This... this had happened before... Allen was sure of it, but whenever he tried to focus, it was as if something wrapped itself tightly around his mind. Some sort of bond, that locked away all of the secrets that he could almost touch, like watching rain slide down a pain of glass.

Serena's attention wasn't on him, as it had been for the last few days. Now, her eyes were locked on the large screen above them, an odd device that displayed a rendering of a young man in the colors of Asgard, gripping a sword tightly in both hands. His surroundings were almost impossible to make out, but the sword, crowned at its hilt with a glowing energist, could only have one purpose. 

Another rush of half-memory stormed Allen's mind as he watched the man draw it and saw the world in the screen become enveloped in white light, giving way to the magnificent form of an angel with wings outstretched. In a moment it was gone, but Allen had to drop his head to his hands, both temples throbbing beyond what he could bear.

We're ready to begin, captain. Just give the order and we'll fully activate the power spot.We'll proceed when the empress contacts us, not until. a second soldier, positioned alongside a console on the far side of the room, shouted toward them, his voice almost frantic. Captain, the _Meriantheri_ is under attack! Enemy vessels have docked and soldiers are boarding! A loud, trilling sound from the console brought his attention back to it, blood draining from his face as he inspected it. Five more fortresses have been assaulted! Because of the storm, we couldn't detect the incoming ships. We don't even know who they are!Calm down, Serena commanded quietly. Take us to an altitude of... She staggered and fell as the fortress shifted suddenly and violently beneath them. Allen barely caught himself against the walls of the corridor behind him in time to brace himself. For a moment everything was silent, aside from Serena's bellowed What happened?Four ships have docked. The main helmsman called. One on level seven, one on level twelve, and two on the uppermost deck. I'm not getting any response from those areas. They must have boarded already!Dispatch our forces at once. Contain them, whatever the cost! No one must interfere. With one backward glance, she unsheathed her sword and set out at a run for the portal behind him. He stood still, lost between the prospect of falling after her and the malice he felt at what she represented. Didn't she know that the power of Atlantis was going to destroy the world? Did she even care?

Her quick cry of Protect my brother! If anything happens to him, consider your own life forfeit, only served to further muddle his resolve. Serena was all he had left, out of all the glory that had once filled his life. Without her, there would be nothing.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

How Merle came to stand beside him and why he was standing in this peculiar room, holding his shaking form as if it were all in the world that was real, he didn't know.

Secondly, possibly more inexplicably, it was _she _who murmured words of comfort to _him, _caressing his wind-touseled hair with her mailed paws. He wasn't weeping, but he was certainly very close to it, now that he was near her. The same draw that brought him to this lonely, empty place must have been calling her. His last memory was of his accent up the winding stair behind him, to find her with him at once, almost as if she could feel his coming.

Before he could apologize, or even consider uttering any kind of excuse for what was easily his greatest failing, the deepness of her eyes silenced him.

It's alright, Lord Van. I knew you'd come back, someday. I _knew _it.

She buried her face in his shoulder, her own form shaking ever so slightly. The quaver in her voice told him that she was barely restraining herself, and that it was for his sake.

he began, the word tasting sallow.

No, don't say anything. It's alright. They clung to one another, observed only by the monstrosity that towered over them, bathing the chamber in an unnatural, green glow.Everything is coming undone. I can _feel _ it.I abandoned you, Merle, he told her quietly, not letting her interrupt him. I don't even know why.It happened because... because of her, Lord Van. She wanted to help you, and this is what it all turned into. We have to stop all of this.

In her, there was a stark maturity he could not have guessed that she might have held. As dire as her statement was, her head didn't bow. There was no meekness left, only a brutal honesty that hurt him all the more because he caused it. And because, after all that had happened, she harbored no pain for him.

If her eyes had been dark, full of hurt, full of _something _that acknowledged how fully he had failed her, he thought he might actually feel more at peace. 

Forgive me, Merle.There will be time enough, to ask for forgiveness. In all of us, there are sins that must be answered for. The voice did not belong to Merle. It was a deep voice, mature and composed, ghosting on the air like a thin fog. Standing not ten paces before them was the glowing outline of a man.

Tampering with fate brings a high cost, higher than any of us might have known, before we undertook it. And yet, even had we known, many of us would have undertaken it anyway. I believe that I would have.

The figure bowed slightly, the impression of a smile gracing a figure that had no true feature. He stepped forward, hand out raised in greeting or in warning, and the blood in Van's veins stilled. He had felt Folken's death - mourned it... and yet, this confrontation pierced him anew. Folken was dead. His mother, his father...

Yes. Yes, Van, I'm here. In a way, all of us are here. When the device was used on us, we became a part of fate, or at the very least, a part of this contrived fate. Each of us are caught like a feather in a river, and you are certainly no exception.Why are you telling me this? What can I do? If the world splintered beneath his feet where he stood, Van could feel no less lost.

All of us who were taken are held here, Van, waiting for the same power that imprisoned us to set us free. This power was never meant for human hands, as I learned far too late. His outline began to fade. We aren't the only ones held captive, Van. The device engine did _not _fail. You must stop it. he cried out once, the word already too late even before it passed his lips. Folken was gone. Once again, his brother was lost to him.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

One final card, prince Chid. Hitomi drew the last from the top of the deck, letting it snap clearly in the near-silence of the chamber. Chid waited, wide-eyed, waiting with an anticipation that he no longer tried to hide.

_It is ending...'_

She paused, searching the room silently for the source of the words, and found nothing. If Dornkirk had returned, or was speaking directly into her mind, he was gone now. With a deep breath, she glanced at the card she now held.

The red robe of the Emperor flashed clearly in the candle light. The card of good fortune, the card of hope that she had been longing to draw ever since she arrived in Gaea, so long ago.

Chid must have seen her smile, because he mirrored it with one of his own.

What is it, Hitomi? What did you draw?This card, my prince. This card represents... A downward glance revealed a cascade of rubble and two falling forms. The Emperor was gone. In its place, was the Tower. She did not gasp, but it was a reaction she staved off with great difficulty. A blink, a shake of her head, and it was the Emperor who met her gaze once again.

It was the stress of the last few weeks, she told herself resolutely. The old memories of Millerna's reading and of the horrible mistake made when she tried to exchange one fortune for another. There was nothing to fear, since fortune itself was now resting in her hand like a tame bird.

Preparing to lay the card down, she found that, once again, she held the Tower. And before she could even think, it was the Emperor. Hitomi, is something wrong...?

A gray stone pillar. A wise man bearing crown and scepter. And then... the card was gone. Whatever was in her hand was there no longer. She held nothing.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Merle was at his side again, taking his bare hand in her gauntleted one and holding it tightly. He let his eyes grace over her, admiring and regretting how strong she had become. She didn't sink into his touch, or leap to lick at his face; she stood in her own dignity, shining with her own light. He felt safer, less alone. Afraid.

So, you're learning the last few pieces to this peculiar puzzle, are you?

They both started at the new voice, rough and worn by age and... something else. An elderly man stepped from the shadows at the corner of the peculiar room. The emperor cocked his head to the side, smiling in a sidelong sort of way. When Van didn't speak, the smile grew slightly.

Yes, my boy, I'm here as well. Van stared at the apparition, unwilling to believe what he saw. If you're alive, then you must have... His sword was at hand before he even realized it. You're behind this! You're using Hitomi!Lad, I can assure you beyond doubt that, whatever I am, it could hardly be called He held up a hand that admitted more light than it denied. I am a prisoner of fate now, just as you and the newly proclaimed empress are. All of us are but tools, bound by the very device I intended to use for our liberation. Fate, it would seem, is not a simple thing to trifle with. The old man leaned forward on a translucent cane. Even I was not able to foresee the potential of the engine.What do you mean? I thought the zone of fortune was supposed to make everyone's wishes come true. If it's been working all along, then what happened? What did you do?! Van's anger overrode him again. If not for Merle's restraining grip on his arm, he couldn't have said how he might have acted.

My boy, the engine draws out the greatest desire of every heart and gives it birth. Rheumy eyes blinked thoughtfully. And what greater desire exists within all humanity than the simple need for... purpose?Can there be a greater need than one that surpasses slumber and warmth and love, a desire that aches within all of us from the moment we are old enough to ask the questions of _why?' _In all things, we seek guidance.

In a horrible way, the old man's musings seemed so close to the tangibility of the truth. But a need for purpose itself couldn't rewrite the core of a person. It couldn't reshape all callings and convolute convictions that existed in such firmness.

What are you saying? That purpose can pull apart reason? It was Merle who spoke, tightening her clasping hand.

Dear one, is that not why you are here? Would you have come, if you were not searching for answers? For reason? Are not reason and purpose the same thing? When she didn't answer, the old man smiled. In order for purpose to be given, certain... compromises must be made. Certain decisions must take place, certain roles altered. When the chains of fate come undone, who remains bound to its laws? You must surely have seen this by now.Then, Hitomi was changed because you died?

Dornkirk nodded. The void left behind needed to be filled, and her cry for purpose, for meaning, her desire to end war... these things helped forge the union between her and the device. All over this land there were voids that required fulfillment, and the device did what it could, even bending the edges of the human mind, if necessary. She is as much a prisoner as anyone - perhaps even more so. Save her, Lord Van of Fanelia. She tried to do as much for you.How do we stop it? Is there even a way to?Only one that I could fathom. As long as the engine exists, these bonds will remain.

In a strange sense, Van felt pity for the shadow of the man, the great inventor, who spent his life contemplating and nearly mastering the laws of destiny. Nearly. The perfection of the universe and an end to all suffering were not the deluded ravings of a madman. If anyone was worthy of success, it was the emperor. But fate was not meant to be used.

This was a just punishment for his arrogance. The old man understood it, now, after death and agony and the days he must have spent, watching and musing, as Hitomi was taken by the power of fate.

With a small nod, Van stepped forward and the soft outline of the emperor pulsed and was gone. There was only one thing left to do - the smallest and yet the largest task he had ever undertaken.

Ollen70: Vastly overdue and not even completely coherent, but this chapter is done. I'd meant to post all three of the chapters at the same time, as a gift for taking so long in posting (for which I'm truly sorry - I hate it when people do that in long stories) but I really wanted to post SOMETHING, just to let you all know that I'm still alive and still appreciative of all your support.

Rachel, Inda, Ciuline Ihmenjo (thank you so much for sacrificing your eye-cells for me. We'll see if we can't do something to fix that...) and everybody else, if not for all of your incredible support, I probably would have canned this story when my computer ate it. Thanks so much for sticking with me!


	17. Somewhere to begin

Ollen70: Well, just one more chapter left. Chapter 16 has been replaced with new content, so it would be a good idea to read that before reading this, because it won't make much sense otherwise. Thanks again to everyone who's stuck it out with me so far.

Disclaimer: The characters and places in this story don't belong to me, but _this _particular storyline is original (nobody's desperate enough to steal it anyway, methinks.)

Chapter Seventeen - - Somewhere to begin

x x x x x x x x x x x x

With all of the strength, all of the courage,  
come and lift me from this place.  
I know I can love you much better than this   
full of Grace.

Sarah McLachlan Full of Grace

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Eries stepped out of her levy-ship, radiating a great deal more resolve than she felt. A narrow plank connected the aft of the ship to the enemy fortress. Shifting whiteness opened endlessly below her - soft jaws that would take her silently if her foot so much as slipped.

She didn't let out the sigh that had been building. When she stood on the firm flooring of the highest melef bay in the fortress, she merely stood at the ready, surveying her surroundings. Before she had even left the levy-ship, her guards had poured into the room, cutting down the few soldiers protecting it. They stood in a fierce circle around her now, all with blades drawn, the red feathers of their hats twisting desperately in the wind.

More than one soldier had already climbed into the now-unprotected guymelefs in the bay and were operating them readily enough, if not a bit awkwardly. Just the same, it was a very good sign. Over all, the attack had gone much better than she could have hoped, though they hadn't yet received word of how the strikes on the other fortresses had fared.

Two of the commanding guardians stood behind her, brows furrowed. None thought it appropriate for the custodian of the throne of Asturia to be active in the battle, but their objections meant less than nothing to her. However valid they may be, she _needed _this. Zaibach was closing in on the world - in less than an hour, as far as they could tell - the empire had taken Freid again. It would take them less than that to completely crush Asturia, once the power of Fate was in their hands.

She may have failed to save Chid, but she would not let her nation die quietly. If she was destined to fall, she would not lose her life - she would spend it, giving every fiber of herself into this one last effort. Damned as it may be, it was her choice. None would sway her from it.

A deafening blast brought her attention racing back to the scene that was now unfolding before her. The portal before her was now totally sundered, pieces of cracked metal sent clattering across the floor of the bay. When the smoke cleared, two of her soldiers lay dead and the rest were locked in combat with heavily armored and armed men.

In the shadows of the room stood a figure, clad in black mail and bearing a long silver sword. Obviously the leader of the force, perhaps the overseer of the fortress itself. Since this fortress was the largest they had yet uncovered, there was a chance this person was a captain or even a brigadier. No matter. Rank was of little consequence.

Stepping forward, the woman - it was apparent now that it was indeed a woman - pushed back silver hair that nearly reached her waist. She wore a sleek suit of black armor, traced with curving lines and patterns in an even darker enamel.

Whoever dares challenge the fastness of Asgard, who has done them no harm nor offered any threat, will be dealt with. Surrender now, or none of you will leave this place alive!

Eries didn't know what was meant by that. No matter what they were calling themselves, Zaibach was Zaibach and conquest was conquest. This woman was nothing. She extended her sword again in Eries' direction. Without meaning to, the eldest daughter of Asturia smiled. Eries didn't understand swords. They were men's business, no matter how the times were changing, and she wouldn't sully herself by carrying one.

The woman advanced, and for a moment Eries had almost convinced herself that she knew her, somehow. The recognition passed easily enough, leaving only opponents and nothing more.

Under the authority of the kingdom of Asturia, I demand that Zaibach withdraw its troops and once, and pay full reparation for the damage you have wrought. We will accept nothing short of full penance for this second desecration of Freid!

At this, the woman laughed.

Desecration? You've sealed your fate for no reason. Freid has not been harmed, but you won't be so lucky. No one attacks Asgard and walks away. Stepping forward, Eries gasped. What had been a slight touch of familiarity flared at once into recognition. The pale light in the chamber was enough to illuminate the woman's face.

she managed weakly. Serena Schezar? What...?Princess Eries. A grim smile creased her lips. Who would have thought our paths would lead this way? Without so much as blinking, the younger woman brought up her sword and began her slow advance.

Eries needed no blade. Swords she didn't understand, but swords were not the only weapons in the world. Reaching into her robes, she withdrew a white fan and unfurled it, holding it close. All women were allowed to have secrets, and she was certainly no exception.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Allen ran. His chest heaved and his ribs ached at the exertion, but he didn't check his speed. The falchion Merle had given him was naked at his side, gleaming in a readiness he himself could never possess, no matter how many battles he fought.

The corridors were dim and long, leading him in deceptive curves and often splitting awkwardly or without warning. His feet knew the path, or so it seemed. At the very least, their knowledge of it was no worse than his own, so he let them go as they would.

Ever upward the corridors seemed to twist, taking him higher and higher into the inner-most workings of the fortress. Sounds of struggle came from many directions,but he kept running. There was only one struggle that interested him - only one that really mattered at all, fought in some distant corner of this dark monstrosity, and he knew that he would find it. He had to.

Fate, contrived or real, was guiding each footfall now, and he found to his dismay that, whatever it was, he didn't care. This was the course he was given, and he was going to follow it.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

When blade met the pleats of the fan, Serena clamped down on her shock, hiding it as deeply as she could. This was a princess she faced, not a warrior. It was absurd to think that she might have so much skill in combat. Instead of crumbling, the fan rang metallically and Serena felt the jolt of it race into her shoulder.

The princess only smiled grimly and riposted, the sharp edges of the fan only barely missing her face. A tight spin, another low slash, and the two of them fell in together. Their dance was more intimate, more closely performed than those of the other warriors still flailing with longswords or claymores, the odd pikemen lunging at a katana wielder or a saber master engaging one of the soldiers who bore a falchion.

Closer and closer, until their bodies were almost pressed against each other, the sword and fan lashing at each other as if they were alive and full of hate. any minute now, one of the weapons would falter. When that happened, one of them would die. They were too close now, the battle too intricate.

I am become death... she heard the princess mutter softly, the pale ivory of her skin, the golden sheen of her hair very much reminiscent of her dear brother's. The end was indeed near. If her strokes were weakening or her aim starting to fail, it was no more severe than Eries'. No matter what skill the woman had come by, she was a princess, used to a softer life. Practice could not replace the rigor of true battle. Late or soon, a conclusion was bound to be met.

And for a moment, the world slowed brutally. Both of them faltered, staggering away from each other, Serena expecting at any minute to feel the bite of the fan across her throat and vowing that, if such a moment came, Eries would find her silver sword buried to its hilt in her chest.

She fired herself forward into this last action, feeling rather than seeing the princess do the same. No stroke ever came. There was no jarring clash, no indignant, defiant shriek of metal across metal. There was only a soft, masculine grunt as a tall figure blocked the way to her foe with his back. A soft curtain of gold fluttered into her eyes. Her hand trembled.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Van stood poised in the Escaflowne. The moments between the appearance of Dornkirk and his return here in the guymelef were hazy and dull, but this moment was nothing but truth. Above him, the crystal sphere of the machine loomed fantastically. In it, Van could see everything.

Its smooth lines shone soothingly, speaking in muted tones of a future where there existed nothing but peace... rest... The future called, a future without strife or fear, a future where sorrow was not master and agony was a far distant thing. How could he shatter something of such great beauty, the only tool by which the world might be freed from its chains?

Green light, the color of the sunlight that filtered through Fanelian forests, pulsed with perfect certainty. Perhaps, in the rippling torrent of his life, there were some constants after all.

He barely heard the clatter of the sword as it landed below him. Why deny the cries of perfection, of a merciful life waiting to be born? The time of war and loss weighed too heavily. The clear planes of the crystal reflected a promise and a joy he never before had felt. His mother... the softness of her eyes... Folken... the past that was dead, giving way at last to a newer, kinder course.

Best to forget what once was, to move into what was offered. There was nothing to be gained in looking behind. Fate was a hammer and a sword, to be given or to be taken, to build or to destroy. It was a gift and a prize, worth fighting for. Worth gaining.

Dornkirk failed. Even Hitomi failed, ultimately, when she groped for the power. She held it now, but not for long. The draw of fate was too strong to ignore. This power should be wielded by one of strength, one of authority. He would take it, and shape the world as it should be shaped, eliminating war and strife and loss. The perfect future of man must be wrenched out of the clutches of fate. Dornkirk's pathetic tinkering could do nothing, and no gentle folding or manipulating would achieve such ends either. He would do what the other two did not know how. He would fight the weakness of time, the weakness of fate. Nothing could stop him, now.

Above, he saw only eternity, waiting to be embraced. Then, the sphere was penetrated, defiled, lost. A gaping hole bloomed in its center, holding together only for the barest of moments before it exploded into dust. Rage was buried under imitigable loss. He screamed amid the rain of falling shards. The sundered gears pitched and swayed like living things as they fell, bending or shattering outright on their impact. Merle stood on the other side of the dead machine. Her aim had been true.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Fire filled her eyes and ears, a roaring holocaust that yielded nothing but pain all through her body. Her own wailing filled her ears. Though agony was tearing her apart, with every beat of her heart it lessened, stilling with a maddening slowness until her eyes became useful again, showing her a dim room lit with four candles and a window that looked out into clouds of falling snow.

a fragile little voice called to her. Hitomi, are you all right? She looked upward, into deep eyes that were not so far from her own.

Her own voice sounded dry and cracked to her. What's going on, prince Chid? Where are we?Are... don't you remember?Remember what? What happened?

He shifted, helping her to her feet with a hand that almost trembled. The other gestured to the cards scattered across the floor of the room, cards that she hadn't even noticed until then.

You were about to read my fortune, Hitomi. You'd laid down all of the other cards, but... but there was still one left...

Between her ring and index finger was one glossy card, half-turned and almost unreadable in the dimness of the room. She tilted it with a cautious reverence, frightened of something she couldn't place. The memory of Millerna's ill-fated fortune was surprisingly fresh in her mind. The magician card flashed at her, filling her vision with vivid gold and white. When the meaning of it began to settle in her mind, she laughed aloud without caring who heard.

Ollen70: Final chapter will be up soon. On my honor.


	18. For the World

Ollen70: Well, here it is. The very last chapter, finally rewritten now that my computer has decided to be civil for once. For those of you who were hoping for a very romantic ending, I'm afraid you'll be a bit disappointed with this. I'd always intended for this to sort of tie together with the series (albeit in a very strange way) at the end, so please forgive me if it doesn't really live up to your expectations.

I'd like to offer a very heartfelt thank-you' to all of the people who offered me encouragement, especially to Cuiline Ihmenjo, Umino Ayame, Inda, Macky, and Rachel, and those of you who e-mailed to find out why I dropped off the face of the earth.

Disclaimer: The Vision of Escaflowne doesn't belong to me. I'm just a poser. sigh

Chapter Eighteen - For the World

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Nothing has changed.  
Except the run of rivers,  
the shapes of forests, shores, deserts, and glaciers.  
The little soul roams among those landscapes,  
disappears, returns, draws near, moves away,  
evasive and a stranger to itself,  
now sure, now uncertain of its own existence,  
whereas the body is and is and is  
and has nowhere to go.

Wislawa Szymborska

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Lord Van Whoever called to him was very far away. He lay face-down on a cold surface, blinking furiously. Either his sight was gone, or the room was dark. Spots of impossible color rolled in his field of vision, clearing ever so slowly.

A woman was looking down on him, holding him partially off the ground with both hands. Pointed ears, a stunning shock of hair, a pair of bright - if not somewhat muted now- eyes that could only belong to one person... I'm here with you, Lord Van. It's all going to be alright. She smiled, and he believed her. With every part of him, he believed her. It seemed to his mind that something had been horribly wrong once, but it was gone now.

What happened? Did we defeat Zaibach

Merle's eyebrows raised for a moment, but it was so fleeting that he thought nothing of it. Yes, Zaibach's been destroyed. It's all over, Lord Van.

He fell into her arms. He loved her desperately, as he had always loved her. She was his guardian now, his sister more than merely his companion. Her caution, her ardor - she had freed him at last from this madness. Peace was her gift to him. He clutched at it, through disbelief.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

His body sagged between them, pulled toward the darkness of the corridor by her hand on his side and at the same time pulled toward the open hangar door and the Asturian fleet by the princess. A sickening wetness coated her hand, some liquid that she couldn't bear to look at, flowing from the horrible gap her blade had scored in his side.

Her other hand, wound around him to clutch at the flesh of his chest through the slackening of his chain mail, gripped him so tightly that he struggled weakly against her. She didn't let go. As long as the steady hammering beneath her fingers didn't lose its strength, she felt safe.

She dug her fingertips into him deeply, not easing her grip even when the flesh yielded. Familiar liquid coated those fingers lightly, drying quickly and pulling at her when she tried to move her hand away. Someone cried out, then. It could have been anyone, for all she knew - It might have been her.

Allen's body was still rigid in her arms, not yet soft or slack, and he still pulled against her left hand as she kept his back flush against her. Eries, her enemy, had not yet loosed her own hold, and showed no signs of doing so. And then, something inside of her tore.

Her brother almost slipped from her grip as she gasped, staggering forward with small, desperate steps. Two sympathetic gasps followed her own, and Allen's body locked all at once, nearly tearing him away from her entirely. She was clutching him, a reddened sword lay on the metal floor, and the last memory that she could be certain of was of him holding _her, _watching the wreckage of the _Scherazade _after his battle with the Fanelian king.

Her body was heavy again, wrapped in black armor and draped in silver hair much too long to be her own, but greater still was the weight of foreboding that hung over her. Somehow, she knew that she was responsible for her brother's pitiable state - that she had stabbed him. It made no sense, unless her body was not solely under her control any longer. Perhaps the fell creature that had dwelled inside of her for so long was resurfacing again?

If that were so, she would fight it. That part of the past was dead. The dog-man Jajuka, her caretaker, had killed it with his own dying breath, and she would not let it be born again.

The three of them sank silently to the floor of the fortress. Around them, there was silence. The melee was now over - most of the soldiers milled about aimlessly, obviously as confused with their circumstances as she was with her own. Her awareness alighted itself on her brother and caught there. The princess Eries was pulling away his armor and his cloak, with its odd embroidery of stars.

His wound, when it was uncovered, was hideous. The blade had slid along his ribs, entering and exiting the skin only, puncturing his flesh without entering deeper into his body. Not a serious wound - not a lethal wound, but a horrific thing to behold. Blood coated the fair skin of his side, nightmarish runes left from the blood against the pattern of his chain mail.

He'll live. Eries tore the hem away from her robe, not looking at anything but the man below her. Why Serena ever felt any sort of malice toward this woman, she no longer knew. Now, there was only a sense of grace, of gratitude unmuted and yet unsung. The bandages fell into the place and Allen's groaning body was carried to the levy-ship holding place at the entrance to this dark hold. When Serena rose, Eries walked beside her toward the ship. Neither spoke.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

The resolutions of the world were difficult ones. Much damage was done - some of it was nearly irreparable. Baslam and Chesario were all but gone. Though their subjects still remained, the foundations of the nations were now completely fractured, and it was unlikely that either would ever recover fully. The destruction of the Destiny prognostication engine had undone most of the wishes made after Dornkirk's death. The floating fortresses were now all but gone, lost like phantoms under the bright glow of the long-awaited morning.

Van looked out over his kingdom, and over the still, gray form of the Escaflowne. Bowed, it seemed small and almost pitiable, the tip of its sword buried in the earth as it crouched. Everything that used to be familiar felt so foreign.

He hadn't truly spoken to Merle yet, aside from the few words they uttered to each other on their return to Fanelia. Hitomi had been there, having arrived with an escort from Freid not long before the Escaflowne and Merle's new guymelef did. Before he could say a word to the woman, though, Hitomi had taken Merle aside. After that, Hitomi came and found him. She no longer wore the pendant.

They said little. Though there was much to discuss, as with Merle, it was so hard to put it all into words - to make it all real. The pieces of what had happened were falling into place, but his mind was still for the most part free of those memories. He could remember the battle with Zaibach, and the use of the Baslam weapon. He could remember all of the horrors of the war, and the burning echo from within, telling him clearly that Folken was dead.

After that, he remembered only the eerie green glow of the crystal sphere, and how it broke apart into an infinite number of shards at the last. Dornkirk and the empire were gone. Fanelia was at last free to emerge as a mighty kingdom in its own right. He could regain the lost honor of his family. It would take time, as all things did, but it was time he was willing to sacrifice.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

The room around him was bright with the blessed touch of sunlight. Though Allen reeled against the pounding in all parts of his body, the scant warmth it provided was all too welcome. He felt cold, even under the white sheets and embroidered quilts guarding him officiously. 

Attempting to sit up, he was immediately defeated by a racing, arching pain in his side. He coughed once, weakly, before falling back into the pillows behind him. It didn't feel so much like defeat, flooded as he was by a glorious sense of repose at the warmth of the bed under him. Breathing took more effort than he remembered. His body, he now noticed, was bare except for a tight wrapping of clean bandaging around his side, explaining the constriction and resulting ache with every deep breath.

Someone shifted nearby, but Allen couldn't tell who. The light was too bright, his own weakness still too painfully apparent. He didn't close his eyes, though. He must have been asleep for a long time, and the dull throb in his head told him that more sleep would not cure it. 

And so the Knight of Heaven awakens. An outline stood before him, not quite blocking the sunlight. He squinted. It wasn't until the figure drew very close that he was able to make out the form of Eries. His memories were tattered, but he couldn't fathom how she could have come to be at his side. They barely knew one another, and the few dealing that has taken place between them hadn't been friendly.

I hope, for your sake, you feel improvedMy body aches was all he could tell her. Hardly the eloquent response he could have hoped for, but it would have to do.

Not a surprise, considering what it has been put through. She stepped closer to him, laying a cool hand on his brow. With her other hand, she pulled back the sheets and exposed him to the waist. He started, preparing to object. He wasn't given an opportunity. Given his sluggishness, she was able to divest him of the bandages before he could so much as open his mouth.

From a small vial that he hadn't noticed on the bedside table, she poured a clear substance into the wound. A soft aroma stood out, strikingly clear. Lavender oil. Taking a deep breath, he felt himself sink further into the welcoming folds of the bed.

Why are you doing this he asked raggedly. There are maids, and the sisters of the church... He got no further than that. Her level stare, so similar and yet so much cooler than her sister's, stopped him immediately with a sternness that was not cruel.

I do it because I wish to. As custodian of the throne of Asturia, I have such liberty. She tightened a fresh white bandage around him, forcing him to lift himself for a moment so she could pass it beneath him. It was uncomfortable, but not overly so, and in a moment she was finished. 

My lady Eries...You're a very unique person, Allen Schezar she said calmly. There's someone who's been waiting to see you. I'll tell her that you're awake. One of her hands lingered over Allen's for just a moment. Cold and elegantly curled, her fingered applied just a bit of pressure. It was so slight he was sure he had imagined it, until he saw her smile.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

Merle stood over the cast-iron cook pot, stirring its contents vigorously as the soup within it began to boil. The warmth from it was welcome against the chill of the morning, but the day was dawning bright and clear.

The workers, repairing the outer walls of the fortress, were more than happy for the warm food, and she had no qualms in standing down from her former duties, for now. There was nothing degrading about working hard, especially when all of the other citizens of Fanelia were doing the same.

Most of the damage had been rebuilt following the war, but, following Van's disappearance, a good deal was left undone. Today, it almost felt like none of the past had been real. Van remembered very little of what had happened, but he hadn't asked her to enlighten him. He was afraid. She didn't blame him for that.

All around, the hammering and the random clatter of the reconstruction barely touched her. Instead, the metronomic swaying of a single object under her tunic caught her attention, and she lifted it out into the light. The pink stone around her neck glimmered in the sun. Hitomi's last gift to Van, and she had entrusted it to Merle, to pass on when Merle believed he was ready. Someday - and she was certain of this - he would ask for it. For now, she was honored to hold it in his stead.

Speaking of the young king, he strode up the middle of a re-paved main avenue some distance below her, making his way toward the main of the palace. Noticing her, he waved almost. With a soft smile, she returned the wave. Nothing was going to be the same now, between them and between him and his kingdom. Van was a different person, having tasted both strength and weakness. It would take time for him to totally come to terms with things, if he ever did at all, but she was willing to afford him time and space. At the moment, they were what he needed most.

Filling a wooden tray with the now-hot soup and a loaf of bread, she made her way under the shadows of the great trees, toward the alleys around the inner wall.

Hey, I brought your dinner One of the workers heard her cry and gave a very appreciative wave.

Thank you, Chancellor he called back, inclining his head in respect. She met him with a bright grin. Around them, the world bustled with the activity of a nation made anew. It was going to be a good day.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

She held him in her arms for just a moment. He was still weak, barely having recovered from the stab wound, as well as the other injuries he'd sustained previously. As with the cut in his side, she knew that, somehow, his partly healed ribs and the bruises along his thighs were her fault as well.

If he was aware of that at all, there was no sign of it in him. His arms were firm around her and, if only briefly, she was able to forget that they had ever been apart. His strong fingers worked through her long, silver hair. 

After their second parting, they were together again. A family, though a meager one.

Once Allen had slipped back into a restless sleep, she stepped out onto the balcony. An inbound wind blew steadily, and while it was cold, she felt safe. The city of Palas shone in the morning sunlight. It seemed as if all of Gaea had been remade today, into a world without shadow or fear.

Eries stood at her side, looking out over the city and the ocean beyond it. The blue expanse roiled slowly under the winter sun. Serena leaned out over the balcony as the elder princess wrapped one arm around her shoulders. When Serena felt a single tear run down her cheek, she wiped it away without a thought. Her life was starting out again, as it should.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

The grove where they stood, surrounded by the markers of the dead, seemed so peaceful. Frost still held the grass rigid and left feathered patterns across the smooth, white marble of each marker. Van stood before her, facing the monument to his dead brother. She lay one hand on his shoulder.

Folken died to stop Dornkirk. He knew he was going to die, and he went anyway. Van said nothing, but Hitomi didn't take her hand away. I think he understood, before the end. I... I wish I'd understood then...It's over now. That part of history is fading...His voice wasn't cold, but it was still so distant.

I did all of it to protect you. Hitomi knew he already understood that.

No one asked you to. He turned, catching her hand in his own. People's emotions can sometimes move the heavens, but when two such emotions conflict, it can cause so much ill will...' Those dark eyes studied the angle of her face with undue care. Is that what happened to usI... wanted to keep you safe. I worried about you, so much... She grazed his hair with her fingertips. My emotions bound you, because... one deep breath, to calm her racing heartbecause I love you. She clutched him tightly. Both of her hands gripped the fabric of his red tunic with sudden desperation. I'm sorry. I was the one who didn't understand. I no longer believe in predetermined fate.

Now, at last, Van's eyes touched hers. He pulled back, keeping her shoulders in his hands. It's alright, Hitomi. All along... all along, you must have known... 

It seems so long ago, when I first came to Fanelia.

His hold on her felt gentle, now. Natural. It's going to be a new world, now. I think I can finally put the Escaflowne to rest. I've wanted a future where it wasn't needed anymore. That's what Folken wanted, from the beginning.I wanted that too, Van. I would've given my soul for it. She nearly had. The power of the device, and the lure of fate were memories now, but every time she closed her eyes, she was reminded of how strong the lure had been. It would have consumed her, just as it consumed Dornkirk. Everything the aged monarch had told her had been true.

I'm glad that you didn't. When he kissed her, it was everything right, everything good. When they parted, the breaking clouds above paused for breath.

I'd stay here with you... you know that I would. It wasn't an option, and they both knew it. She wouldn't cry, though. She'd already given him her gift, and she knew he would use it when he could. I won't forget you, even when I'm old

Just one moment more, and the sky above pulled away. She could smell him in the fields, the cold stillness of a wind not yet born. They were a part of each other. Even if the bindings had fallen away, the ties they made between one another still held strong.

I love you, Hitomi...I won't forget.

x x x x x x x x x x x x

The pendant was gone, now. Without it, Hitomi felt lighter than she ever could have imagined. Behind her, the traffic roared in an almost spectral way. Though everything was tangible, nothing was real. Fanelia was real. Asturia was real. Merle, in her new wisdom and maturity, was real. And Van...

Van was everything. Van was completion, and she knew that, even if she never saw him again, part of him belonged to her. The mistakes of the past were gone, now, and what remained was beginning to become clearer with every day that passed. The affections she'd held for Allen and Amano were the dream. It was Van, who had always been real.

...but how will I tell if he likes me a girl's voice echoed from behind her. One of the girls from her history class, but her name was elusive.

I know one of the others with her piped up, suddenly enthusiastic. Maybe Hitomi can tell your fortune! Her readings are always right.

A light hand fell on her shoulder. How about it, Hitomi? Will you tell my love fortune

Without meaning any kind of insult, Hitomi laughed softly. Maybe it was the girl's exuberance. Maybe it was her own lack of fear, the feeling that she was facing a child now instead of a young woman who was, more than likely, older than her.

Sorry, girls. I don't read fortunes anymore.

The water across from her was serene. In it, the could see the reflection of the city as the wind ceased its light caresses of the glossy surface. In it, she could see the entire world. At the end of all of it, there was peace.

Van... I'm doing just fine.

El Fin


End file.
